The Soldier in the Woods
by Shelly
Summary: When the supposed remains of Civil War soldier are found in a remote Florida forest, Bones and Booth are sent to authenticate the find. Spoilers through 2x18
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Soldier in the Woods  
**Summary:** When the supposed remains of Civil War soldier are found in a remote Florida forest, Bones and Booth are sent to authenticate the find.  
**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, not even the laptop on which this was written. (Still making payments, thank you.) _Bones_ does not belong to me; neither does Booth, Brennan, or the Squint Squad. I just like to take them out to play.  
**Spoilers: **Through 2x18 - The Killer in the Concrete (This would actually take place in the month of June so, technically, after the end of S2 but, for the sake of spoilers and canon, only through 2x18.)  
**Rating:** T  
**Pairings/Characters: **Booth/Brennan - ensemble**  
****Genres: **Case file/romance/maybe a smidge of angst  
**  
A/N: **My first _Bones_ fic. Be gentle. Extra special thanks go out to Michelle for her priceless comments, indispensable advice, and occasional prods with a sharp stick. Thanks also go to Fling who graciously provided her skills as a top-notch beta. Any errors contained herein are all on me.

Loved it? Hated it? I'd love to know why. Take a moment to review, if the spirit moves you.

_"The closer you get, the better I feel.  
The closer you are, the more I see  
Why everyone says that I look happier  
When you're around.  
The closer you get, the better I feel."  
_from "Closer" by Dido

**Chapter One**

"Bones! Grab your sandals and sunscreen. We're goin' to Florida."

Dr. Brennan didn't need to look up from her paperwork to know that Agent Booth was standing in her doorway, grinning from ear to ear like a kid in a candy shop. She could hear it in his voice. "I'm busy," she replied around the pencil held firmly in her teeth, although it sounded more like, "Mmm bishy."

Movement in her periphery proved what she already knew to be a universal truth. Booth would never take a simple 'no' for an answer. She removed the pencil from her mouth and patiently set it atop the stack of manila folders -- cases, remains that she had delayed identifying because she was off playing secret agent with her own real-life G-man -- not that she was complaining. She loved the excitement and the adventure, and it helped fuel her writing. However, those files were her responsibility, to the Jeffersonian and to the families that needed to know the truth. She'd put them aside too long.

"C'mon, Bones. It'll be fun." Booth was leaning on the edge of her desk, hands slightly more than shoulder width apart, his tie -- bright red with a cartoon boy and a tiger in the center -- pooling on her files.

Brennan sighed and leaned back in her chair, meeting his eyes. It was her first and final mistake. Booth had exceptionally expressive eyes and right now they were begging her to give in to his demands. "Why, exactly, am I going to Florida with you?"

"You're going to Florida?" Angela Montenegro entered the office and meandered over to Brennan's desk. "How romantic." She waggled her manicured eyebrows at Brennan then turned her attention on Booth, who straightened and took a step back.

"Romant . . . no. Not at all," he stammered. Angela glanced at Brennan and they shared a smile. While Brennan didn't usually approve of Angela's insistence that Booth was a hot-buttered biscuit _and_ had the hots for her, she found it amusing when Ange turned the tables on him. A flustered Booth was an entertaining Booth, she had to admit.

"Agent Booth was about to tell me how going to Florida with him was more important than this stack of files," Brennan explained, the whole time watching him as he regained his composure, shifting his shoulders under his suit jacket and muttering to himself. It seemed that, lately, it took him longer to do so after one of Angela's innuendo-laden barbs.

"What's there to know?" Angela countered. "Sun, sand, and dark tans, versus fluorescent lights, bones, and skulls. You wouldn't have to ask me twice." She turned back to Booth and flashed him a patented Montenegro smile. "Ask me. I'll prove it."

Booth grinned and shook his head. "Sorry, Angela, no can do. I'm in need of a forensic anthropologist for this trip, not an artist. Maybe next time."

"Don't make promises you won't keep," she purred as she turned and walked out of the room, calling over her shoulder to Brennan, "Zack wanted me to tell you that he's finished the scans on your John Doe."

"Thanks," Brennan called after her before addressing Booth. "So, why?"

"Hmmm?" He turned his attention back to her and smiled. "Oh." He chuckled and looked down at his hands. "Some hikers found a skeleton in the Ocala National Forest a couple of days ago. The Gainesville field office called it in to D.C. and Cullen is sending me to check it out. I'm going to need you to help me with identification."

Now it was starting to make sense. "But why you? What did you do to Cullen?" Brennan asked, trying to hide a smile.

Booth threw his hands in the air and turned on his heel, pacing away from her desk and back again before answering. "I was playing a prank on Simmons. I put salt in the sugar dispenser in the break room. How was I supposed to know that Cullen was going to get a cup of coffee? Damn, that man can hold a grudge."

Brennan blew out a puff of air and rolled her eyes. "You can't be serious. He's punishing you because of an adolescent prank?"

With a sullen glare, Booth nodded. "That and I may have dinged his car last week." Before she could say anything, he interjected, pointing a finger at the ceiling, "May have! There's no proof."

"Of course not," she replied, nodding her head seriously. "That explains why _you're_ going to Florida. I still fail to see why _I_ have to go."

His devilish grin reappeared and he edged closer, placing a hand on her arm, and prompting her out of her chair. "Because, Bones, we're partners. When I get punished, you get punished."

She walked along with him, snagging her bag as soon as it was within reach. "That doesn't seem very fair," she commented.

"I never said it was fair."

"I'd like to rethink this partner thing, if it's all the same to you."

"It's not," he replied as he ushered her past the guard and out of the inner-sanctum of the Medico-Legal Lab, toward the front door. "Let's go get you packed. I'll explain everything on the plane."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Thanks, Zack. Keep on that set and have Hodgins see if he can isolate the remains to a particular area. I'll check in as soon as we land."

Booth buckled his seatbelt and watched Brennan as she ended her call and turned off her cell phone. She tucked it into her knapsack, which she nudged into the storage area under the seat in front of her with a hiking-boot clad foot. She searched for the hook end of her seatbelt and, with delicate fingers, deftly connected the two ends, pulling the strap tight around her lithe frame. She had packed quickly and he'd noticed that she'd seemed to have a bag almost ready, having only to add a few toiletries and destination-specific articles. He supposed that was part of the package when one's particular skills were in demand all over the world. She was the best, and she was his.

The instant that thought crossed his mind she looked up at him asked, "What?"

"What?" he replied, knowing immediately that he sounded like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. Had he been?

"You looked lost in thought," she commented as she reached up and adjusted the air flow from the vent. "You were smiling."

Booth looked out the small window and ran his finger along the pane, paying close attention to the ground crew as they finished loading luggage. "It wasn't anything important," he finally said, turning back to see that Brennan was studying him, eyes narrowed, a small smile tugging at her lips.

"No, really, what was it?"

"I don't know many women who would be able to walk out of their office, pack a bag, and be to the airport, boarding a plane, in less than two hours -- and look as pulled together as you do." A slight blush dusted her cheeks and he knew that he'd moved her with the compliment. "That's what I was thinking about," he admitted.

She looked down at her lap. "I learned a long time ago that it never hurts to be as prepared as possible for every contingency. You have no idea how many times I've been called in the middle of the night . . . well, I suppose you have some idea . . ." She glanced up as the flight attendant began to run through the pre-flight safety instructions. "Were you planning on telling me why I'm on this plane or are you going to make me guess?"

The plane began to taxi away from the gate. "I suppose I can tell you now, since we're on our way and there's no real chance of you turning me down."

Brennan snorted and rolled her eyes. "As if I had a choice," she pointedly remarked.

Booth ignored the comment and settled back into his seat as the plane got in line for take-off. "I already told you that some hikers found human remains."

"Right." She reached for the SkyMall magazine and began to flip pages. "I'm assuming there's more if they called D.C."

He frowned at the magazine but refrained from demanding her full and undivided attention. "The skeleton was found with some Civil War era artifacts; buttons, buckles, a rifle, and a locked metal box." Booth paused to give Brennan a moment to process the information.

She'd stopped flipping through the magazine, her eyes distant as she mentally catalogued the find. "There were a few battles fought in Florida throughout the war. They probably stumbled across a previously undocumented battleground." She shrugged and returned to the magazine. "I still fail to see why I have to be there. Can't they just package up everything and send it to the lab? That's what I'll probably end up doing, anyway."

Booth tapped the window and swallowed back his nerves as the plane rounded the end of the taxi-way and took up position at the end of the runway. "See, Bones, you need to let me finish the story before you start jumping to conclusions." The engines roared to life and he gripped the arm-rests out of reflex. A fraction of a second later, he felt her hand on his, holding tight to his fingers as the plane picked up speed and began to lift off the ground.

They were silent while they sharply ascended, their fingers locked together. When the plane leveled off, Booth looked at their entwined fingers and then at Brennan, meeting her grey-blue eyes.

She smiled but didn't let go. "I've been flying all over the world since I started college and I still get nervous when the engines pick up. It's a chemical response, an adrenaline spike, to compensate for the nerves. A modified fight-or-flight response, I suppose"

He smiled, too, and squeezed her fingers. "I know what you mean. I don't like landings much, either."

"Statistically speaking, flying is still the safest form of travel." She squeezed his fingers in return, and then slowly pulled her hand away.

"Statistically speaking," he agreed, wondering at the feeling of loss as her fingers left his.

". . . something to do with proportions. If there were as many planes in the sky as there were cars on the ground, would they still be able to say that or are they basing that conclusion on faulty input?" Brennan tucked her hair behind her ear and sighed.

Booth swallowed, forcing himself to pay attention to her and not the inexplicable pounding of his heart or the strange feeling in his gut. He pushed his thoughts and feelings to the back of his mind, and shrugged at her rhetorical question. "So, the rest of the story?" he prompted. Brennan squared her shoulders and settled back into her seat, and he knew that she had felt the shift in the tone of their conversation. She nodded and he continued. "The body wasn't buried as if the victim died in battle. It was found in a shallow grave, which led the locals to believe that they'd stumbled across a more recent body, not something historical."

"How much of the site was disturbed before they found the artifacts?" She had her game face on now, the consummate professional.

"Very little," he explained. "The site was being treated as suspicious so they were taking all the precautions anyway."

She nodded and looked away, deep in thought as if she were constructing the scene in her mind. When she looked back, her brow was furrowed in concentration. "It's been over one hundred and forty years since the war. Why did it take so long for someone to find this site? If it was a shallow burial, it should have been found sooner."

Booth nodded but countered, "The Ocala Forest isn't exactly downtown Miami. It's in the middle of the state, practically the middle of nowhere. The site is pretty far off of any marked trails. The only reason the hikers found it was because they were practicing orienteering for a survival race. They were walking off of a terrain map and compass. Regular day hikers wouldn't have come close to stumbling over this one."

"I wouldn't exactly call the middle of Florida the middle of nowhere." She was flipping through the magazine again, discounting the presumed importance of the find. "The state is roughly 150 miles across in the central portions. You could probably walk for a day and find a shopping center or urban area."

Booth sighed, reached down for the thin attaché case he'd brought on board, and pulled out the photos that had been emailed to him earlier in the day. Without preamble, he dropped the photos on top of the article she was reading, watching closely for a reaction.

"Why didn't you tell me you had photos?" she murmured, as she studied the first with interest. She turned it on its side then cocked her head before turning the photo, and her head, upright again. Then she moved on to the second, then the third photo, giving each the same diligent attention. Booth watched, fascinated, as she ran her fingertips along the outline of the bones, examining the photos with her trained eyes.

Finally, she spoke. "It's hard to tell from a photo, but I don't think this was an intentional burial. Of course, I need to see everything in person, just as it's laid out, but judging from the way the bones are positioned, it looks like this person was injured."

She held up the photo that showed the entirety of the skeleton and pointed, "See here how the bones are in a fetal position? That indicates that the victim was curled up against the elements, perhaps, or was in a fair amount of pain before they died." Then she pointed to the metal box, wrapped within the skeleton's boney embrace. "Has that been moved?"

Booth shook his head. "They haven't moved a thing. They've been told to wait for you."

Brennan glanced at him and offered a small smile before returning to the photo. She ran her fingers across the glossy surface, examining what she couldn't yet touch. "The contents of that box were very important to this person. They died protecting it."

Slowly, Booth removed the photos from her lap and returned them to his case. "We'll be there soon enough and you can do your magic."

"It's hardly magic, Booth. It's a methodical scientific procedure, designed to gain the most knowledge while making the least impact on the find." She was staring straight ahead, lost in thought, her words an automatic response rather than a conscious choice.

Booth smiled and leaned his head against the seat back, closing his eyes against the impulse to correct her. Sometimes, it was easier to let it, and her, go.

* * *

Three hours later, they were traveling along I-75 in their rental car, headed for Ocala. Booth, as usual, was driving. Brennan quietly stared out the passenger window, watching the unremarkable scenery roll by. Slash pines, cypress hammocks, rolling pastures dotted with scrub palmetto and more often populated with cattle than horses, flashed by as they traveled north.

The sun was setting, the shadows growing long. A road sign approached and Brennan caught that their destination was just over 20 miles off before it zipped past them in a blur. She looked out the driver's-side window at the orange glow of the sunset. "I'm assuming that you're not planning on going to the site tonight," she said, breaking the silence.

Booth nodded. "It's pretty deep in the woods. There's no real urgency on this one so we're not expected until tomorrow morning."

With a noncommittal hum, Brennan looked out her window and, once again, watched the vast nothingness. "You were right. Even though I know that the coast isn't that far to the east and the west, this looks like the middle of nowhere."

Booth laughed. "I was right?"

She grinned, "Don't sound so surprised. It happens from time to time. I don't usually point it out, though." Her stomach grumbled and she added, "I'm going to need food pretty soon."

"Me, too," Booth patted his stomach to emphasize the point. "The hotel's only a few more miles from here. We'll get checked in and you can buy me dinner."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who shanghaied me for this trip. You should be buying me dinner."

"Technically true -- but you still have the unlimited expense account." His eyes danced with mischief as he grinned at her, and her stomach did a flip. Caught off guard by her reaction, she nodded and turned back to her window.

She could admit that she did feel a small attraction to Booth. She was a woman and she wasn't blind. Given those factors, it was inevitable that she would have some level of attraction for him. He was an alpha male; strong, virile, well-defined and toned. She'd seen him shirtless on a handful of occasions and could attest to the fact that the man worked out. He took good care of himself, too, having once pointed out to her that he drank three glasses of milk a day. He was an exquisite specimen of a man -- that didn't mean that she was in love with him.

And yet . . . ever since Sully had left her behind to sail the Caribbean . . .

She shook her head and sighed. They were partners. Logically, she posited, her feelings for him were stemming from some sort of partners' derivative of Stockholm Syndrome. It was nothing more than that. They spent a fair amount of time together, it was only natural that she'd form some sort of attachment to him.

Her thoughts returned to a conversation she'd had with Angela not too long after Sully had sailed away. Angela had insisted on spending an evening with her, bonding as girlfriends were supposed to do. Brennan was sure that Angela assumed she was grieving over Sully's departure so she had agreed simply to put her friend's mind at ease.

They had watched a movie, she couldn't remember the name now, nor did she remember who the lead actors were. She wasn't one to spend time or energy with such pursuits. She did recall, however, that the heroine had been put in some sort of outlandish predicament and, when the hero had finally rescued her, they professed their undying love for one another.

Brennan had scoffed at the idea. Angela, behind her tears, had asked her to explain her disdain.

"They just spent the first hour and fifteen minutes of the movie arguing with each other. One near death experience and they're practically getting married. It's farfetched and unrealistic."

"Sweetie, they bickered with each other because, deep down, they loved and respected each other but were afraid to admit it. It was a smoke screen."

"Booth and I bicker all the time and we've been in dangerous situations. You don't see us declaring our undying love for each other."

"First of all, I find it interesting that you would bring up the hunky G-man. Second of all, this was a movie -- fiction -- you can't compare it to real life."

"Angela, seriously, I don't deny that I feel a small degree of attraction to Booth. He's a very handsome man and I'm a breathing woman. Of course I'm attracted to him. Aren't you?"

"If Jack ever asks? No. For the sake of this conversation, however, I would have to say yes. There was a time that I would have tapped that ass, given the chance."

"I rest my case."

Angela had smiled and crossed her arms. "Oh, no. You don't get off that easy."

Inexplicably, Brennan had become agitated, feeling as if she were on trial. "Fine. Let's examine the evidence, shall we?"

Angela had nodded, not even trying to hide her smirk. "Proceed."

Pacing around her living room, she had ticked off her fingers while she recounted all the times she or Booth had been in mortal danger. "Booth was nearly blown up, in my kitchen, while protecting me. I was nearly killed and fed to dogs and he rescued me. I was buried alive, with Hodgins, and you and Booth rescued us just as we were about to run out of air. He was captured by a lunatic who tortured him, and my . . . father and I found him. I lied to the FBI, Ange, to find him. I punched a woman, who had been rendered harmless and was no threat to me, in the face, to find him. All those times, all those life-threatening experiences, and there have been no declarations of love -- not even an invitation for a date. We're friends and colleagues. Your theory is flawed."

She had realized, at that point, that her voice had gotten progressively louder and strained as she'd argued her point, and that Angela was staring at her in silence before she conceded, "Okay, hon. You're right."

Brennan had chosen to ignore the accompanying eye-roll, and the topic had been dropped. But not before the thought had wormed its way into Brennan's mind. Maybe, just maybe, she was forming an attachment to a man who would never look at her as more than a friend. She found, to her surprise, that the thought depressed her more than she cared to admit.

She sighed and looked up as the car slowed, realizing that she had reminisced away the remainder of their drive and they had arrived at the hotel. Booth parked and shut off the car, nodding toward the blue-roofed restaurant next to the hotel.

"How about some pancakes? I'm starving." He waggled his eyebrows and, with a grin, hopped out of the car and popped the trunk.

Brennan smiled and joined him. Who cared if they might never exist beyond their current state, she thought, as she grabbed her knapsack and overnight case -- he insisted on carrying her suitcase. They were, as she'd insisted to Angela, friends and colleagues. If nothing more ever transpired between them, at least they had that much.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Booth sipped his coffee and groaned. They'd both ordered large, and he was thinking he might regret it before the night was over. Brennan made a noise and he looked up in time to see her pop one last morsel of bacon in her mouth, her eyes closed in ecstasy, and then lick the tips of her fingers. He quickly averted his eyes before his thoughts ran away with him. Honestly, there was only so much a red-blooded man could take.

He took another sip of coffee and cleared his throat. "So, how are things with the Squint Squad?" He watched her over the rim of his cup.

She wiped her mouth and took a sip of her own coffee before responding. "Everything is fine, thank you for asking."

"The place won't fall apart without you there?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm relatively certain that Angela can keep the guys from blowing the place up, if that's what you mean. Besides, Cam is there to rein them in, if need be." She placed her half-empty cup on the table. "I'm done here. Are you ready to call it a night?"

Booth nodded and reached for his wallet, only to be stopped when Brennan grabbed the check. Before he could argue, she said, "Unlimited expense account, remember?" He nodded and they both stood, walking to the register where she paid the tab. They were headed toward the hotel when she mentioned, "I want to check out the weather report. Zack said that there's a storm forming in the Gulf and we might want to keep an eye on it."

Booth stopped short. "Storm? As in hurricane?"

Brennan continued walking, and he had to jog to catch up to her. "No, a storm as in a tropical system with the potential to become a hurricane. I'd like to see what the meteorologists are predicting. If it does turn this way, it could tighten up our timeline at the site."

"Right." They entered the hotel lobby and took the elevator together in silence. The door slid open on the third floor and Booth rationalized, "Even if it does form into a hurricane and head this way, we're far enough inland. It shouldn't be that bad."

Brennan arrived at the door to her room, directly across the hall from Booth's. "Not necessarily," she replied while slipping the keycard in and out of the reader with practiced ease. The light turned green, and she turned the knob, opening the door and stepping inside, leaving Booth in the hall staring after her.

The door closed, snapping him into action. In two strides, he was at her door, knocking. "What do you mean . . ." the door opened, and he continued, ". . . not necessarily?"

She sighed and opened the door further to allow him in, explaining as she untied her shoes and opened her suitcase. "Hurricane Charley made landfall just south of Tampa a couple of years ago. By the time the eye had reached the Orlando area, the storm was still a strong category one, almost a category two. There wasn't a storm surge, as there was with Katrina in New Orleans but the structural damage from the wind was still substantial and some areas were without electricity for weeks. People weren't prepared because they thought exactly what you're thinking. It all depends on how strong the storm is before landfall, how fast it's moving, and the angle at which it's traveling. There are several factors involved." She pulled out a tee shirt and boxer shorts and turned to him, her clothes in hand. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to change and get to bed. We have an early day tomorrow."

Booth nodded and walked to the door, turning to say, "Good night, Temperance," as he stepped into the hall.

She had followed him to the door, no doubt to set the safety lock once he was gone. She smiled and whispered, "Good night, Booth." The door shut and he waited for the click of the deadbolt before walking to his room, trying simultaneously to _not_ think about getting stuck in a hurricane or what Brennan was wearing to bed. Both would guarantee a sleepless night.

* * *

Early the next morning, Brennan was listening to the weather report as she towel dried her hair. The storm, now Tropical Storm Bernice, was still strengthening but not moving in their direction. All reports were predicting a slow curve to the east, but not until it was far north of their location. Booth, she reckoned, would be infinitely relieved.

Because of the storm, however, the forecast for their location was hot and dry. She ran her fingers through her damp hair and pulled it up into a loose ponytail, then reached for her sunscreen. She had squeezed a dollop into her hand when she was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Hold on," she called, hesitating, thinking about making the person wait and deciding, instead, to answer. A quick check through the peephole revealed a close up of Booth's eye. She jumped back, sighed, and opened the door. "You shouldn't try to look through the peephole like that," she scolded as he brushed past her, a take-out tray containing two coffee cups in his hand. "You startled me."

He shrugged as he removed the lid from one container and took a sip. He instantly screwed up his face in disgust and looked around the room. "Sugar?" It was more of a gasp than a request.

Brennan nodded toward the bathroom, and he headed in that direction. "The coffee pot is in the same place as it was in your room, isn't it?" He ignored her, as she figured he would, his mind singly focused on the task at hand. She rubbed her hands together, distributing the lotion before smoothing it onto one of her arms. Booth emerged from the bathroom with a handful of sugar packets, pausing briefly as he passed her.

"What's that?" he asked, his eyes on her hand as she worked the lotion into her skin.

"Sunscreen," she replied, wiping the remainder on her face and neck.

"Hmmm." He added several sugars to his coffee, stirred it for a moment, and took another sip, this one ending with a smile. "Smells nice," he said.

She had crossed the room and was putting on her shoes. "The coffee?" she asked.

"No," he said, drawing it out as if he were trying to be patient with her -- over what, she couldn't imagine. "The lotion."

Shoes on and tied, she set about straightening up the room and packing her knapsack with the items she thought she might need on the site. "It's coconut."

"I know it's coconut." He pulled the other cup out of the tray and held it out to her. "It smells nice."

She stopped bustling about the room and took the offered coffee -- and the compliment. "Thank you," she said. They stood in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the coffee and the quiet companionship, until Brennan said, "You'll be relieved to know that the storm isn't headed this way."

Booth nodded. "I was watching the weather, too."

"I'm glad we don't have to worry about a hurricane blowing through and compromising the remains," she explained, finishing her coffee and picking up her bag.

Booth finished his, too, and tossed his cup in the trash can. "I'm glad we don't have to worry about getting carried away," he commented as he joined her at the door.

His comment caught her off guard and that funny feeling that she'd had in the car returned. "Carried away doing what?"

He reached around her, too close for the places her mind was going, and opened the door. "Carried away on the wind, Bones, like Dorothy and Toto. You know, 'whoooosh'." His free hand swooped up, mimicking a glider.

She stepped out of the way and smiled, nervously. ""Wizard of Oz.' I've seen that," she blurted, quickly stepping through the doorway and into the hall, out of his personal space.

He was giving her a funny look, so she turned and started walking, thinking for all the world that she would love to be able to kick Angela, except then she'd have to explain to Angela why she'd kicked her, and that would open up a whole avenue of conversation that she _didn't_ want to have.

She was _not_ falling for Seeley Booth, and damn Angela, anyway, for making the suggestion in the first place.

* * *

They rode to the site in silence. Something was eating at Brennan, but Booth wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was. So, instead of trying to talk to her, he busied himself with thinking about what souvenir he could pick up to take back to Parker.

The silence was almost tangible, and he was relieved when he came across the gated dirt road that would lead them to the ranger's station. A few rather bumpy minutes later they were parked in front of a small log-cabin styled building.

"Here we are," Booth said, for no other reason than to say something. Brennan hummed in reply, and they both stepped out into the considerable mid-morning heat.

"Mornin'!" The ranger stepped off the porch and raised his hand in greeting. "You with the F.B.I?"

Booth reached into his back pocket and pulled out his badge, holding it out for the ranger to inspect. "Agent Booth, and this," he tilted his head in Brennan's direction, "is my partner, Dr. Brennan."

"I'm Cliff Jacobs," the ranger introduced himself while leading them into the air-conditioned office. "You sure picked a nice day to come on out here."

Brennan followed first, with Booth bringing up the rear. "How far away are the remains?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

Booth nudged her with his elbow and offered Ranger Jacobs a polite smile.

"What?" she asked defensively, giving him the 'I didn't do anything wrong so I don't know what you're trying to tell me' look.

"Thank you for meeting us here Mr. Jacobs," Booth said, trying to bring some civility back to the conversation.

"Call me Cliff," the ranger replied, his smile unwavering as he turned his attention to Booth. "The bones are a good thirty-minute walk from here. You'll want to grab some bottled water from the fridge. You'll be in the shade, but even the shade can be awful hot this time of year."

Brennan immediately set off to collect the water, Cliff watching her as she walked past, and not making any secret of the fact that he was appreciative of her form. Bristling, Booth cleared his throat and, when the ranger was able to peel his eyes off of Brennan's assets, smiled, and said, "I've read the report but I'd like to hear from you how all of this came about."

Cliff nodded and leaned back on his desk as he recapped. "Couple of day hikers were out practicing for one'a them survival races. They found the bones out there. Good thing, too. They were able to mark the location on their map. Anyone else and we might not'a found them again. They headed back to the park where they'd come in and told the ranger on duty. He called the sheriff and the rest is history."

"You said that we're about a thirty-minute walk from the bones?" Booth leaned against the wall and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. Off of Cliff's nod, he continued, "I guess they didn't know that you were out here."

"Guess not," Cliff agreed, his expression non-committal.

Both men straightened when Brennan returned, her arms loaded with water bottles. "I grabbed three bottles for each of us," she explained, walking up to Booth. He quickly took his half of the cold bottles from her arms, helping ease her load, and glanced over her shoulder in time to see the ranger avert his eyes from her backside.

He was sure it was the heat making him cranky and not the fact that a backwoods forest ranger was mentally undressing his partner with him standing mere feet away. Brennan was an attractive woman and, he was sure, when she wasn't clad in a blue lab-coat, received numerous appreciative looks from other men.

Still, something about this ranger and his roaming eyes made Booth's skin crawl.

"Booth?" Brennan was still standing in front of him, and he realized that he and Ranger Cliff had been staring each other down. Never one to pass up an opportunity, he winked at the ranger, hoping to send him a 'hands off' message, and glanced back to Brennan. "Can we go now?" she asked, apparently oblivious to the posturing going on all around her. "These bottles are very cold."

* * *

Brennan knelt over the remains, careful not to touch anything. She had known what to expect from the photos but, in person, she couldn't help but feel a small sense of history. From all outward appearances, this was an authentic Civil War-era specimen. However, she was a professional, and she reminded herself to never, ever, make assumptions until all the data had been analyzed.

She stood up and had taken a few steps back to look over the immediate surroundings when a light touch on her shoulder made her jump.

"Sorry," Booth whispered. "I didn't want to interrupt your train of thought."

Without taking her eyes off of the site, she shrugged. "It's okay. What did you need?"

He stepped around to stand next to her. "That's what I was going to ask you. Do you need anything?"

She shook her head but, after a beat, asked, "Did Cliff say anything about anyone digging around the remains?" She didn't point to the obvious indicators of a recent excavation. She knew that Booth would pick up on it as soon as she suggested it.

He took a moment to look at the site and then softly replied, "He didn't mention it. It's possible that the sheriff's team might have dug a little before they realized the historical significance."

Brennan shook her head and forced her eyes away from the bones. She glanced around to see who was standing nearby and who might be paying attention to them, then moved a few feet away from the remains to where she'd leaned her pack against a tree trunk. Booth followed.

She opened a bottle of water and, while facing away from the others, took a sip, waiting for Booth to catch on. He picked up a bottle of water, too, and turned to keep an eye on the ranger and the others who had joined them shortly after they had arrived on scene.

"Well?" he asked between sips.

"Do you see how the remains are in a slight depression? It's a natural shallow grave, but the bones weren't naturally uncovered. They're too deep and the surrounding earth is level. Someone was already excavating when the hikers came through."

"You mean the hikers weren't the first ones to find these bones."

"That's what I said," she replied. "Someone else was here first."

"Can you prove that?" he asked.

She hesitated. Could she prove that? "Probably," she conceded.

"Probably?" He didn't even try to hide the irritation in his tone.

"Probably," she repeated. "And don't get short with me. You know how this works."

"Hey, Cliff," Booth interrupted, stepping away from her and toward the ranger. Brennan turned to find that some more men had joined their small party.

"'Scuse me," Cliff said, tipping his hat in Brennan's direction. "You wanted to know when the hikers got here."

Booth nodded and glanced at Brennan before walking away with the ranger and leaving her with the remains. His glance, however, spoke volumes. 'Get what you need and do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Booth walked with the ranger to the other side of the small clearing where the young, nervous hikers were talking with representatives of the sheriff's office and the local F.B.I. office. He quickly stepped in and excused the other men, hoping to talk to the hikers alone for a few minutes.

He pulled out his badge and introduced himself, "I'm Special Agent Booth from the F.B.I."

The blond hiker, his arms folded defensively across his chest, interrupted. "We already talked to the F.B.I. Why are we here again?"

He reigned in his temper and forced a smile. "See, this is the point in the conversation when you politely introduce yourself. You are?"

The other, quieter, man stepped forward and offered his hand. Booth took it as the man spoke. "I'm John Thomas," he said, and then inclined his head in his friend's direction. "This is Brad Meyers. We're both a little concerned about being called back out here. We thought we'd answered everyone's questions."

Booth smiled and started walking, the men joining him as they headed further away from the small contingent of local law enforcement. "I know you must be concerned," he explained. "The local field office turned this over to D.C. I'm here with a forensic anthropologist from the Jeffersonian Institution. Sometimes it helps for us to talk to the involved parties personally instead of reading the reports." They stopped walking and Booth turned, Brennan just within his line of sight to the left, the men facing him. "Could you go over what happened, one more time?"

Brad blew out a breath and nodded. "John and I are in training for the Gainesville Eco-triathlon. We were out here practicing orienteering. We hit this clearing and there it was." He pointed toward the remains, pausing to watch Brennan as she bagged a sample of earth from the depression. "Is that Temperance Brennan?"

Booth followed Brad's gaze and allowed himself a self-indulgent smile before turning back to the task at hand. "Yeah, that's her."

Brad whistled under his breath. "She's big time." He turned to John. "If she's here this has to be important." Turing back to Booth, he explained, "I'm a criminology major at U of F. She's required reading."

Booth rolled his eyes and tried to get the men back on track. "You found the remains . . ."

John picked up the narrative while Brad, entranced, watched Brennan. "We found the remains and realized that they were human. We marked the location on our map and hot-footed it back to the rangers' station."

"How did you know they were human?" Booth asked, keeping a careful eye on John, reading his reactions.

John shrugged. "It's not that hard when there's a skull staring at you," he explained.

"How much of the skeleton was exposed when you found it?"

"Well, most of it." John nudged Brad who tore his eyes away from Brennan and shook his head as if to clear it. "Right?"

Brad looked at Booth, who gave him his best 'don't think about it' glare. "Yeah. There wasn't much that was still covered. It was mostly dug up."

"Dug up?" Booth remembered what Brennan had said about the remains having been excavated before the hikers found them.

"Yeah," John explained. He hunched down and swept the thin layer of dried pine needles aside, exposing the sand. "See how the top layer of sand is mostly white and dry?" Booth nodded while John pulled a small knife from his back pocket, unsheathed it, and stuck the tip into the sand, turning it over to expose the darker, damp earth underneath. "This is what it looks like when it's been recently turned. It looked like this all around the bones."

Booth filed that away for later discussion and was about to thank the men and let them go when Brad asked, "Do you think she'd give us an autograph?"

Trying to suppress the urge for sarcasm, Booth turned his head in time to see Brennan look up and off into the woods to her left. They both saw a man, standing behind a distant pine tree, about thirty feet beyond Brennan and opposite from where Booth was standing.

The man, realizing his presence was no longer secret, took off. Before Booth could say a word, Brennan had dropped what she was doing and was on her feet, sprinting in pursuit.

The whole series of events took seconds, and Booth's mind quickly processed the relevant information. 'Strange man -- running -- Bones -- unarmed -- chasing -- in the woods . . .'

"Shit," he exhaled as he took off after her, one hand unhooking the handgun strapped to his waist. "Bones! _Stop_!"

* * *

She had felt the odd sensation of being watched. At first Brennan thought it was the hiker standing with Booth off to her right. She'd heard one of them speak her name and had given him a sideways glance, and he'd been staring at her ever since. She'd been doing her level best to ignore him, focusing instead on the task at hand.

She'd finished collecting samples and had been ready to begin the slow process of colleting the remains when she felt it again -- eyes -- watching her -- making the hair on the back of her neck stand at attention.

Looking up, she'd glanced to the left and frozen. It hadn't been the hiker that had been setting her internal alarms off. A haggard-looking man stood in the distance, partially obscured by a pine. Their eyes had met over the distance and, in a flash, he was running.

Conscious thought hadn't played into her reaction. She was on her feet and running after him, the samples and bones momentarily forgotten. He was quick; she gave him that, and seemed to know the woods. He wound his way through the trees and palmettos with ease. Brennan had to pay attention to her footing, and he was gaining ground on her because of it.

She heard Booth shouting for her to stop and hesitated. He was going to yell at her whether she stopped or not, so she continued to give chase.

"Damn it! Temperance!" Booth was getting closer.

The man passed a thick clump of palmettos and darted behind them, quickly changing direction. Her heart, the only sound other than her feet crackling through the dry underbrush, was pounding in her ears with the exertion. She reached the palmettos and turned a hard right, intent on getting the man back in her line of sight, and promptly tumbled into a rather deep depression.

Brennan instinctively protected her face with her arms and tucked her legs up so she would roll rather than hit the ground flat. As she tumbled down the edge of the pit, she heard Booth shout.

"Son of a . . . Bones!"

She came to a stop on her back, against a small pine sapling. She lay still for a moment, trying to regain her equilibrium. Vaguely, she was aware of Booth cursing and sliding down the side of the pit -- a sinkhole, her brain provided.

"Bones! Are you okay?" He reached out to touch her but hesitated, holding back. She raised herself up on her elbows and squinted up at him, touched by his concern and glad that it seemed to be overwhelming his natural instinct to yell at her when she did things like this.

"I think so," she replied, accepting his hand as he helped her to sit up. As soon as she was upright, his hands were running over her, checking her for . . . she didn't know what . . . broken bones, she assumed.

He started at her head, running his fingers over her scalp, then down her neck and her arms. He skipped over her torso and focused on her legs, running his hands down her left leg first, then the right. He was intent on his task, and she could only stare at him while his hands danced over her body.

She realized then, that he was mumbling as he checked her over. "Running off like that . . . no training . . . supposed to be smart . . . could've been killed."

When the adrenaline wore off, and he realized she was okay, he was going to start shouting, she could already tell.

His initial inspection complete, he started to reach for her torso, apparently to see if she'd broken any ribs in her fall, but stopped when she waved him away. As nice as it was to have someone be so concerned, she didn't like being mothered. "I'm fine," she insisted. "I know how to take a fall."

Like a switch, his concern was replaced with anger and annoyance. He stood up and, hands on his hips, began to shout. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"That's okay," she said to no one in particular. He wasn't listening, anyway. "I can get myself up." She used the small tree as leverage and gingerly rose to her feet.

"You can't just go around running after strange people, Bones! One of these days you're gonna get yourself killed! And then where would you be? Dead! That's where you'd be!"

She started to brush the accumulated dirt, leaves, and pine needles off of her clothes, letting him shout it all out of his system. She'd learned that arguing with him when he was being irrational didn't do either of them any good.

"There were no less than five trained men back there, myself included, who would have happily taken care of this for you but _no_, you have to run off into the woods going God only knows where, with no way to protect yourself. What if something had happened?"

He paused then and leveled a glare at her. She looked up from where she was brushing the dirt off of her leg, frowning at the stains left on her favorite jeans, and realized that he seemed to be waiting for an answer. She obliged him with, "Something did happen. I fell in a hole."

Wrong answer, she thought, as he threw his hands up and began mumbling again.

"Booth." He didn't hear her amidst his ranting, so she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. He stopped and turned around. "I'm sorry, okay?" She really was sorry. Sorry that the guy got away, first and foremost, but she couldn't say that out loud without him going apoplectic. She was also very sorry that he was upset, and she was the cause.

He let out a long breath and ran his hand though his hair. His expression softened back to concern. "You scared me, Bones."

She melted, just a little, under the weight of his gaze. "I'm very, truly, sorry. It was instinct. He ran, I chased."

Booth's lips quivered in what may have been an attempt to suppress a smile. He reached out and touched the side of her head, just above her ear. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, inexplicably unable to control her impulses. Her mind flashed back to the sensation of his hands running over her arms and she shivered. When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her, still at arm's length. Their eyes met and locked. Brennan's heart began to pound again but, this time, not from the exertion of running.

What the hell was happening?

She blinked, and the spell was broken. Booth removed his hand, and a pine-needle that had been caught in her hair, and smiled as he showed it to her and released it to fall to the ground at their feet.

"You two okay down there?"

Brennan looked up to see Cliff and one of the local F.B.I. agents grinning down at them. "We're fine," she assured them as she started to climb up to more solid ground. The hole, she realized, wasn't that deep -- roughly ten feet -- or steep, but the soft Florida sand made climbing out rather difficult. She found herself using the trees as leverage to pull herself out. At one point, Booth had to give her a boost up.

"What took you guys so long?" Booth asked when he was out of the sinkhole and standing next to Brennan.

"Y'all are pretty quick," Cliff said. "One minute you were there and the next you were gone."

"There was a man watching us," Brennan said. "I wanted to find out if he'd seen anything strange in the area." Cliff, she noticed, was looking all around them while she talked.

"Could be one of the locals," Cliff finally said after scanning the area.

Booth raised his eyebrows and repeated, "Locals?"

"Yeah. Squatters. Good ole boys who live out here," Cliff explained as they began walking back in the direction of the remains.

Brennan hung back, letting the men discuss the logistics of people living in the woods on government property. As they reached the area where she'd first seen the man, she began scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary. Something at the base of a tree caught her eye, and she quietly slipped over to investigate.

It was a button. A Civil War soldier's uniform button. She knew this because she'd already collected several identical buttons from the area around the skeleton. Carefully, and as quietly as possible, she pulled a small, plastic baggie out of her pocket, bent over, picked up the button through the bag, wrapped it up, and slipped it back into her pocket -- all before Booth turned around to see where she was.

He gave her a look, which she returned, conversation unnecessary. _'What are you doing?' 'I'll explain later.'_ As she stepped quickly to catch up to the others, she looked back and confirmed her suspicion. The button had been at the base of the tree that her strange watcher had been using for cover.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Several hours later, the remains and artifacts had been carefully removed from the scene and loaded into the back of the rental car. Booth had kept one eye firmly planted on the surroundings, should Brennan's watcher-guy return, and one eye on Brennan, should she decide to take off again. He'd even gone so far as to offer to help with the extraction. She'd smiled a patient smile at him, thanked him for the offer, and shooed him away.

With nothing much to do other than to stand guard, his mind had been free to wander. He was still getting a strange vibe off of Ranger Cliff and couldn't quite put his finger on why. That, in addition to Brennan's strange behavior, her mad-dash through the woods and subsequent header into a sinkhole, and then her surreptitious actions after her tumble, all had his head spinning.

Nothing was making much sense, something he was willing to chalk up to heat exhaustion. They said their goodbyes to Cliff and got in the car, cranking up the air conditioner as soon as the engine had turned over.

Brennan grabbed the two vents on the passenger side and angled them directly at her face, leaning forward to catch as much of the cooled air as possible. "Oh, that's nice," she sighed.

Booth was carefully navigating the rutted dirt road that would lead them back to the highway but spared her a second glance. She was flushed from the heat and the cool air was drying the strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail, sending it blowing about her face.

"My first order of business, after we drop this stuff off at FedEx, is to shower," she said. "I feel . . . yucky."

Booth laughed and turned the car onto the highway, quickly picking up speed now that they were on pavement. "Yucky?"

"I'm tired, hot, and sticky . . . and tired," she explained, turning a weary but playful smile in his direction. "'Yucky' was the best I could come up with on such short notice."

"Point taken," he agreed. He could do with a shower himself. Florida in June wasn't as bad as Florida in August -- but it still wasn't all that great. "We'll be back at the hotel soon enough."

Brennan leaned back in her seat and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. "Good! I'm starting to get a signal." She pressed a couple of buttons and waited. "Angela," she said a few moments later, "I'm fine, he's fine, we're both fine."

Booth paid attention to the road while half-listening to the one-sided conversation.

"We left the site a few minutes ago and I've a couple of boxes that I'm going to be sending there, FedEx, for tomorrow morning." She paused, and Booth figured she was being bombarded with questions. "I can't make any assumptions right now, Angela, you know that. Just ask Zack to look at the skeleton and try to determine cause of death. I have my ideas, but I want to hear what he has to say with the benefit of a clean lab and equipment. Also, there's a locked metal box and some other bits of metal. I want Hodgins to work on those, give me confirmation of authenticity."

She paused again while Angela talked, and Booth reached down to fiddle with the radio. "It's miserably hot and humid here Ange, you wouldn't have liked it. And dirty. I fell in a hole and Booth yelled at me. It's a long story. We're on our way to FedEx right now and then we'll be back at the hotel," another pause and then, "Dinner and shower, not necessarily in that order and, before you even suggest it, no, we will not be conserving water."

Booth's head jerked up, and he nearly swerved off the road.

"Yes, he is," Brennan replied softly, her face turned away from his. "Remind me to kick you when we get home." She disconnected the call and placed her phone on her lap, still looking out the window. Booth remained, wisely, silent.

Several minutes passed and then, out of the blue, Brennan reached into her pocket and pulled out a baggie. "I found this on the ground when we were walking back from the sinkhole."

She was going to ignore her comment and pretend nothing had happened, he reasoned, so Booth gave the item a quick once over before concluding, "It's a button."

"Yes, but . . . it's the same style of button that was with the remains, _and_ it was in the exact place where that guy was standing." Brennan tucked the baggie back in her pocket. "That's what I was doing when we were walking back."

Booth nodded, opened his mouth, reconsidered, and then forged ahead. "Conserving water?"

He heard Brennan sigh. "Angela likes to tease me about, well . . . us . . . you and me."

Smiling, Booth said, "I understand the meaning of the word 'us,' Bones."

She continued talking as if he hadn't said a word. "I keep telling her that she's not being funny but, she's relentless. Sometimes I anticipate her suggestive comments and try to pass her off at the valley. That's what you overheard. Does that make you uncomfortable?"

"Head her off at the pass," he corrected. Off of her look, he continued, "It's 'head her off at the pass' not 'pass her off at the valley' but you were close. And it doesn't make me uncomfortable. Surprised, yes -- but not uncomfortable." The more he thought about it, though, he was also intrigued and just a little bit frightened.

"Oh," was all she said in response. She turned back to the window and retreated into herself. He knew that there would be no more talk on that topic until she'd had time to work out what it was that she wanted to say.

* * *

Brennan stepped under the spray and let the water soak her hair and run down her face. She'd never felt so grungy in all her life, and that was saying something. She was sure that it has something to do with her acrobatic tumble in the dirt and, as she ran her hands through her hair and pulled out a small leaf, she cringed.

She was lucky that all she'd received from her fall was a tongue-lashing. It was quite possible that she could have seriously hurt herself. As the water pounded the tension out of her shoulders, she shifted and moved, feeling sore in a couple of places. She'd probably have a few bruises to show for her recklessness.

Trying to put the incident out of her mind, she poured some shampoo into her hands and began to work it through her hair and into a lather. Booth had proposed a big dinner, since there wasn't anything for them to do until the lab received the packages and started relaying their findings. He had suggested that they find a nice place to have a quiet meal.

The idea had appeal, and she found herself smiling at the opportunity to spend some time with Booth that wasn't job related. She was still slightly mortified at her slip in the car earlier but, more than that was intrigued by his non-reaction.

As she rinsed her hair and reached for the soap and washcloth, she began to hum, and then stopped. Brennan was happy; happy in a way that she hadn't really been since before Sully had left. She had never once regretted her decision to not go with him, but she had sorely missed his companionship -- and, truth be told, the sex.

It seemed that she was finally getting past it. It had taken almost five months for her to reach the point where thinking about him didn't clutter her mind with second thoughts and self-recrimination but, judging by her good humor, she thought she'd finally reached the point where she could face him and not feel a twinge of regret.

Booth's therapist, she thought, would have been pleased with her progress.

She rinsed off and stepped onto the bathmat, scrubbing herself dry and wincing at the tender areas. One spot on her hip was already blooming into color, and there was a considerable scrape along the side of her right arm that she'd just now noticed. Making a mental note to wear long sleeves, she dried her hair and put on some makeup.

With the grit of the day washed off, Brennan felt refreshed. She turned on the television as she started getting dressed but paused when a special bulletin interrupted the regular broadcast.

The storm had strengthened and changed course. They were under an inland Tropical Storm Watch.

"Great." A knock sounded at the door so she turned off the television and rose to let Booth in. She opened the door, said, "The storm is headed in this direction," by way of greeting, and then felt bad when Booth's broad smile faded to a grimace.

"You're kidding," he insisted, following her into the room.

"I'm not," she replied, pulling her laptop out of its travel case and turning it on. "Let this boot up while I finish getting ready, and we can check out the local forecast online before we head out." As she said it, she realized that she was wearing a sleeveless tee shirt, having intended to wear it as a shell under a long sleeved blouse in order to hide the scrape on her arm.

Booth was paying attention to the laptop, so she quickly reached for the blouse and retreated to the bathroom. She wasn't fast enough.

"Is that from today?"

She stopped in her tracks and turned around. "What?"

Booth was looking at her arm, and she self-consciously moved it to hide the scrape from view. "No good, Bones," he said, standing and walking over to her. He took hold of her wrist and gently pulled her arm up and turned it so the scrape was facing out.

It wasn't severe by any stretch, but it was red and welted and more than just a little angry-looking. "It's not that bad," she said trying, unsuccessfully, to remove her arm from his grip.

"Did you put anything on this?" he asked.

Brennan sighed and relaxed. He wasn't going to drop it so she resolved herself to having to deal with his concern. "I washed it when I was in the shower. No, I haven't put anything on it. I suppose we can stop somewhere after dinner so I can buy some antibiotic cream . . . if that would make you happy."

"You not losing your arm to gangrene would make me happy," he growled, but he released her and walked away.

She sighed and slipped her shirt on, buttoning the bottom few buttons. She looked in the mirror and gave herself a quick once-over before turning off the bathroom light and joining Booth at the computer.

* * *

On the recommendation of the hotel's front desk clerk, they had driven into town for dinner at a local steakhouse. Booth didn't comment when Brennan simply ordered a salad and baked potato while he had ordered the T-bone with all the fixings. Neither had turned down a pint of beer.

Booth was trying his best not to fret about the storm. His main concern was getting a flight out. If the storm kept on its current path, there was a good chance that the Tampa airport would cancel flights. Brennan had assured him that there was plenty of time and that there was no need to worry, and he believed her. Still . . .

They had thirty-six hours before the weather would begin to deteriorate in their area -- twenty-four hours for Tampa. In his opinion, that was calling things close.

"All the evidence will be at the lab early tomorrow morning. As soon as I get confirmation that this is, in fact, a historical find and not a homicide, you can go."

Booth looked up from his pint, barely registering her words. "What?"

"You're still worried about the storm," Brennan stated. "Don't be. If I had to put money on it, I'd say that it's not a homicide. No homicide, no F.B.I. You can go home."

Booth shook his head. "I'm not worried," he argued.

Brennan put her glass down and swallowed. "Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not," Booth smiled, and tapped her hand with his finger.

She pulled her hand back and needled, "I'm sorry, but you are. I can tell."

"Oh? How?"

"When you're worried about something you get these little wrinkles," she reached across the table and ran her fingertips lightly across his forehead, "here, right between your eyes." She pulled her hand back, but not before Booth got goose bumps from her slight touch.

"I can't help being worried," he explained. "I don't like it when things are out of my control. I can't control hurricanes." Something else she'd said registered just then and he asked, "What did you mean _I_ can go home. You're coming, too."

She shook her head and leaned back in her chair. "I can't. I'll have to stay here to coordinate an extended dig to make sure that this was an isolated burial. I can't just assume that these are the only historical artifacts in the area."

Booth made a fist and took a breath. "I don't like it," he admitted.

"Mm-hmm," she replied. "You have your worry-wrinkles again." Before he could counter, she leaned forward, wrapped her hands around her glass and said, "I've been in worse situations than a hurricane, Booth. I can take care of myself. I know you don't like things you can't control but, really, when was the last time you were able to control me?" she challenged him with a raised eyebrow.

He had to laugh because she was right. He'd never been able to control her. Sure, he could make suggestions but did she ever follow them? Hardly. "And now is when I have to ask . . . how many times have you failed to do what I've asked you to do and, by direct result, have wound up in trouble?"

"Once or twice, I suppose," she hedged. "Maybe if you weren't so determined to bend me to your will, it wouldn't be an issue."

He nearly choked on his beer. "Bend you to my will?"

Again, she continued talking, not allowing him to respond. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason you want me to work with you is because I challenge you?"

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Did you ever think that the reason I want to work with you is because I enjoy working with you? Not everything has to have an ulterior motive, Bones. Sometimes it just is what it is."

Their dinner arrived and they fell into a comfortable silence as they tackled their meals -- they were both extremely hungry after their long day in the sun.

Brennan had nearly finished her salad when she spoke up again, "What did the hikers tell you? We never talked about it."

Booth hummed around a mouthful of steak, swallowed, and said, "That's because someone decided to run a marathon through the woods."

Brennan stabbed a crouton, cracking it in half. "I _said _I was sorry."

Waving his fork at her, he grinned and said, "Don't get all bent out of shape. I was teasing."

She sniffed and gently picked up the shattered crouton with her fork, placing it in her mouth.

Satisfied, Booth relayed his conversation with the hikers ending with, "You were right, though. They found the bones mostly uncovered. One of the guys even pointed out that the dirt has been recently turned over, a fresh dig."

"Hmmmm." Brennan toyed with the remains of her salad, deep in thought. Booth allowed her the time and finished his mashed potatoes. "I need to see those photos again," she finally said. "When were they taken?"

Booth thought for a moment, "The bones were reported Tuesday evening, the photos taken Wednesday morning."

"And today's Friday," Brennan concluded. "Do you think we could get those guys to look at the photos, too? See if they notice anything?"

Booth smiled, remembering how star-struck the hikers had been. "I don't think that will be a problem, Bones."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

True to her word, she had asked Booth to stop at a 24-hour pharmacy to pick up some antibiotic cream and gauze. She'd sat patiently while Booth dressed her arm -- mostly because he wouldn't let her look at the photos until it was done -- but she liked to think that she was being very accommodating nonetheless. She even bit back the sarcastic comments that jumped to mind, 'might as well take me to the ER and have them put on a cast at this rate' and 'we should have bought more gauze' at the top of the list.

Finally, when he was satisfied that she was sufficiently disinfected and gauzed, he handed her the photos.

"Where's the rifle?" she asked, flipping from between the photos.

Booth had been putting the first-aid supplies in her bathroom and stepped back into the room. "What rifle?"

Brennan looked up from the photos, now spread before her on the bed. "When we were on the plane you said that the skeleton was found with buttons, buckles, a rifle, and a box. There's no rifle in these pictures and there wasn't one at the site today, either."

Booth frowned, sat on the edge of the bed, and picked up each photo, one by one, before reaching for the manila envelope that contained the rest of his paperwork. He flipped though a couple of pages before finding what he was looking for. "Here," he said, handing her the sheet and pointing halfway down the page. "This is Brad Meyers' statement -- one of the hikers. He lists a rifle as one of the items he saw with the bones."

"Could he have been wrong?" she asked as she read the details of his statement.

"Possible but doubtful," Booth replied. "A rifle isn't something that a person usually imagines, but . . . stranger things have happened."

Brennan nodded and handed the statement back to Booth. "Okay, so he sees a rifle at the scene but, before the photos can be taken the following morning, the rifle is gone. Could they have taken it?"

"Again, doubtful. If they took it, why would they list it as being at the scene?" He spread the remaining sheets of paper out on the bed and scanned each before picking them back up in a different order.

Brennan chewed on her lip, mentally running down the material components of a nineteenth-century rifle and working through decomposition and corrosion rates before reaching a conclusion. "After being exposed to the elements and then buried in the dirt for that long, that rifle wouldn't have been worth much of anything, even historically. I doubt it would have little more than sentimental value."

"Here," Booth said, apparently finding what he had been looking for. "Chronologically, the hikers made their statement to the sheriff while they were at the rangers' station. The next statement was from the ranger who, according to this, called the sheriff when the guys told him about the remains and then went out to the scene to check it out personally. He didn't say anything about seeing a rifle."

Brennan sat in silence, putting things together and tearing them back apart just as quickly, before reaching a conclusion. "I'd like to go back out there tomorrow, but I'd like to avoid Ranger Cliff, if at all possible."

Booth nodded and smiled. "No problem. John and Brad are meeting us at the public park where they started their hike on Tuesday. We can ask them to guide us to the scene from there." He paused, and then asked, "Why don't you want the good ranger involved?"

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "He makes my skin crawl," she said. "His eyes were all over me. I can't believe you didn't notice! He wasn't being particularly discreet with his leering."

Booth chuckled, then began to full-out laugh.

Confused, Brennan stood when he did and followed him to the door. "What? What's so funny?"

He waved her off and opened the door, turning at the last moment. "Don't worry about it. Good night, Bones."

"Yeah, good night," she replied to the closing door. Whatever it was, Booth was practically crying with laughter. Sometimes she thought she'd never understand him.

* * *

Booth was humming to the song on the radio as they zipped along in the mid-morning sunshine. Hurricane Bernice was still churning in the Gulf, strengthening, and charting a course for their location, but the weather was strangely calm and peaceful.

Brennan had jokingly called it the 'proverbial calm before the storm' when they'd walked out to the car, which he didn't find particularly reassuring.

He spared a glance toward his passenger. She held her cell phone in her hand, checking her signal strength every few minutes. They were both waiting for the lab to call and give them the results of the find. Angela had called over an hour before to let Brennan know that they'd received the packages and were jumping straight on it.

"It's taking too long," Brennan groused, checking her signal strength again.

"They're not robots, Bones. They're people. And they're being careful -- on your orders, need I remind you?" Booth grinned at her and got a sullen glare in return.

She began to tap the phone against her leg. "It's been over an hour. They should have something by now."

The tapping continued, and Booth found that he couldn't concentrate on the music. Able to take only so much, he reached out and covered her hand with his, stilling the phone. "That's not gonna make it ring," he explained but was forced to eat his words when it did, in fact, ring.

"Ha!" she cried in triumph, checking the caller ID before answering, "Hodgins! What do you have?"

Booth watched her out of the corner of his eye and noticed that her eyes were getting bigger with each word Hodgins said. "Hold on," she said, her excitement evident. "Let me put you on speaker." She pressed a button then said, "Now, say all that again so Booth can hear it, too."

A tinny sounding Hodgins said, "Hey, man."

Booth nodded, then felt silly and said, "Hey."

"Go on," Brennan urged.

"Okay. This is gonna curl your hair. The specimen is legit. I'll let Zack get in to the particulars on that later. What I have to tell you is so much more interesting that some crusty old bones."

"They aren't crusty," Zack interrupted. "They're flaky due to the age and adverse conditions. Hello, Dr. Brennan."

Brennan sighed but smiled. "Hello, Zack. Go ahead, Hodgins."

"The real find was in your box," Hodgins continued. "We didn't call you right away because Angela was doing some research. The box was full of Confederate Notes."

"Money?" Booth asked.

"Money," Hodgins confirmed. "1864 Stonewall Jackson five-hundred dollar Confederate Notes to be precise. And they're in mint condition, too."

Angela piped in. "This is where I take over. Hi, Booth! Hi, Bren!"

"Hi, Angela," they both replied in unison.

"Cute," Angela remarked before commencing. "I did some digging to get information on Confederate Notes and such while Hodge authenticated the cash. When he says that the notes are in mint condition, he's not kidding. They don't show any wear from use and there's a ton of them.

"It turns out that there was a considerable amount of money stolen from the Richmond Mint in September of 1864. Two-hundred-fifty-thousand in five-hundred dollar Jackson notes, from the seventh run, issued on February 17, 1864 -- which is exactly what was in the box. Not only that, but the engraving plates were stolen, too."

"Counterfeiting?" Booth asked.

Warming up to the subject, Angela explained. "The Confederate States weren't very organized when it came to their currency. Each state had its own money in addition to the central government. There was a lot of counterfeiting going on because it was easy to get away with. In fact, the Union tried flooding the Confederate economy with counterfeit bills in order to weaken their dollar and cause a destabilization in their government."

"Isn't she the greatest?" Hodgins asked no one in particular. When no one answered, he continued. "So, it looks like you may have found a century-plus old bank-robber. Oh, and the buttons and buckle are Confederate issue, so he was stealing from his own government. Probably had enough of the fighting and saw this as an out."

"Good work everyone," Brennan said, though Booth noticed that her lower lip was tucked between her teeth. "See what else you can find."

"Will do," Hodgins promised and she disconnected the call.

"What are you thinking about?" Booth asked, making the turn into the park entrance.

She hummed and looked up before shaking her head. "Nothing."

He pulled into a parking space and cut the engine but, before she could open the door, he placed his hand on her knee. "Bones, you're thinking about something. I can tell." Her eyes were on his hand, her lip still between her teeth. "Talk to me."

She leaned back in her seat and he pulled his hand back, giving her a moment to collect her thoughts. "Where are the plates? If this is the guy that robbed that mint . . . all the money is there -- fresh, unused -- but the plates are gone?"

Booth shrugged. "Maybe he sold them to fund his trip south."

Brennan shook her head. "He had a quarter of a million dollars on him and no idea that it would be worthless in a few years."

Booth watched her closely, recognizing the look that meant she was forming a theory. Finally she said, "I'll bet that whoever took that rifle has the plates."

"That's quite a leap," he pointed out. "Remember that there was no mention of anyone seeing engraving plates in any of the witness reports."

She blew out a puff of air and frowned. "In any case, this is officially not a homicide. Once we're done here, you can go home."

Before he could respond, she'd opened the door and stepped out. He hesitated, her words echoing in his mind. She was right. He was free to go. In fact, once their findings were official, he would be expected to come straight back to D.C. Lest he forget, there was also a hurricane on the way -- another good reason to get the hell out of Dodge. And, yet, he found that there was a disturbingly large part of him that didn't want to leave if she was going to stay behind.

Brennan was halfway across the parking lot before she stopped and turned, waving to him in the car and lifting her arms over her head, asking, _'What's taking you so long?'_ with a gesture.

He pushed his apprehension aside, opened the door, and hurried to catch up with her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Brennan was prioritizing a mental list of things she needed to do with regard to the site when Booth joined her. Once she knew if they were dealing with a grave-robber or an over-active imagination, she'd know where to begin. The two young hikers were waiting for them just outside a concession stand.

"They don't look as nervous as they did yesterday," Booth commented.

"Nervous?" she asked, studying them with a scientist's eye.

"Yeah. They were fidgety yesterday." He paused, causing her to glance in his direction. He was smiling broadly when he explained, "Today they're just star-struck."

She didn't have a chance to ask him to explain himself. "Dr. Brennan," the blond man said, rushing forward with hand outstretched. "My name is Brad Meyer. It's a pleasure to meet you."

A little voice told her that this was a situation in which pleasantries were called for. Disturbingly, the little voice sounded a lot like Booth. She smiled and shook the young man's hand. "Thank you for coming out here this morning. I know you must be worried about the storm."

The other man stepped forward. "John Thomas, ma'am. It's no trouble."

Booth cleared his throat and took over the conversation. "We'd like for you to take a look at the photographs of the scene that were taken after you reported it. Tell us if anything looks like it's out of place."

John whistled. "You think someone might have messed with it?"

"Not necessarily," Brennan explained. "There are some minor inconsistencies with the photos and your statement."

"Brad's your man, then." Johntook a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets. "He's practically got a photographic memory. Show him the photos and he can tell you if a bug moved an inch."

Brennan looked to Brad, who was nodding in agreement with John. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Brad smiled and looked at her with an appraising gaze. "Yesterday, your hair was pulled back into a loose tail at the base of your neck -- I like it better down, by the way. You were wearing a light blue tee shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots -- maybe Timberlands. The blue of your shirt brought out the color in your eyes -- they looked more like aquamarines -- today, they look grey, like storm-clouds. You should wear blue more often. You were wearing a necklace, American Indian in origin, brown beads with some turquoise."

Booth had inched closer to her while John was describing her, and she could feel him at her side. The kid was a little disturbing, but good. "Show him the picture, Booth."

Without a word, Booth handed Brad the photo depicting the skeleton in its entirety. He studied it for a moment then pointed. "The rifle's gone." He turned the photo so Booth and Brennan could see, and ran his finger along the backside of the skeleton. "It was here," he explained. "Like the guy was wearing it on his back."

Brennan sighed. Someone had tampered with her dig, and she was doing well to contain her anger. She was about to thank the young man when he said, "The arm is moved, too."

"What?" Brennan looked at the picture again, studying the arm bones. They were wrapped around the box, as if hugging it to the ribcage.

Brad pointed, again. "Right here. See how he's holding this box? This arm was lower and there was something else there. I didn't get a good look at it but it was small and just under the box."

Brennan sent Booth a significant look. Without pause, he pulled a terrain map out of his back pocket. "Would you be able to show us, on this map, the path you were taking that led you to the remains?"

* * *

"You didn't have to bite his head off," Brennan remarked. She was walking behind him as they made their way through the woods.

"I didn't bite his head off." Booth paused, checked his compass, adjusted their heading, and set off again.

"I was an Army Ranger," she retorted, her voice deep. "I _know_ how to read a map and compass."

He stopped walking and turned to face her. "Okay. I did _not_ sound like that." She was smiling broadly, no doubt pleased that she'd needled him into a reaction.

"You really did," she replied.

They'd been walking for over an hour, following the same path that the men had followed. It was just after noon, and the day was hot, though a steady breeze was blowing through the pines, causing the trees to sway and creak. Booth found the whole situation slightly creepy. According to the map, they were getting close to the site and he was hoping that Brennan wouldn't take too long poking around so they could get back before the weather began to turn.

He made a face at her and turned back to the path, taking another moment to recalibrate their heading. "It shouldn't be much further," he said.

She didn't reply, but he kept going, listening to the sounds of the woods around them. He'd walked several yards before he realized that what he wasn't hearing was a second set of footsteps behind him. Confused, he turned and found . . . nothing.

Brennan was nowhere to be seen.

"Bones?" He retraced his steps, his hand instinctively on the butt of his gun. "Bones!"

"Here," she said, stepping out from behind a large scrub palmetto. Relief faded to anger and he found himself counting to ten in his head.

"What the hell . . .?"

"The guy," she began. He noticed that she held something in her hand -- something that she kept turning over and over with her fingertips.

"What guy?" he asked, back on alert.

She shook her head and motioned for him to stay where he was. When she was at his side, he reached out and took hold of her arm, stopping her and forcing her attention to him.

"What are you talking about? Bones, don't _do_ that! If you're going to stop, you have to let me know so when I turn around to check on you, you're not gone." Ten, apparently, hadn't helped assuage his anger. Next time, he'd try twenty. In German.

She frowned and pulled back a little, causing him to release her arm. "It was the man from the site, yesterday, the one who was watching me. He can't talk -- or doesn't talk -- one or the other. He gave me this."

She placed the item in Booth's hand. It was another button. "He took this from the remains," Booth deduced. "He probably took the rifle and the plates, too."

"That's quite a leap," she parroted his earlier words. Looking around, she scanned the woods in all directions. "I don't think he took the items, but I think he knows who did. He was afraid."

Booth was determined to get to the bottom of . . . whatever was going on . . . and turned to march back to the palmetto outcropping. Brennan's hand on his arm stilled him. "He's not there, Booth. He took off as soon as you called for me."

He sighed and hung his head, gathering his thoughts. "You can't keep doing that," he said. Off of her confused look, he explained. "Every time you do something like that," he gestured to where she'd disappeared, "my heart practically stops. You're so focused on what you're doing that you don't take into account that the strange looking guy in the woods might not want to give you a button. He might want to hurt you." His voice softened. "It's my job to keep you safe, Bones, but you make it extremely difficult."

Their eyes met and locked, and then Brennan broke into a wide smile. "That's sweet but unnecessary."

Booth rolled his eyes, smiling because he couldn't help it when she smiled. "I wasn't trying to be sweet," he argued. "I was trying to awaken your sense of self-preservation."

"Understood." She pointed in the direction that they'd been headed before her unscheduled stop. "That way?"

"Yeah, that way." Booth let her lead, following close behind, where he could keep an eye on her.

* * *

"The last flight out is at seven." Brennan looked up from her laptop as Booth finished packing. "You should just make it if you leave within the next few minutes."

"I don't like leaving you without a car," he groused, shoving his shaving kit into a side pocket in his suitcase. "What if something happens and you need to get somewhere quick?"

"We've already covered this." She leaned against the headboard and watched him walk around the room, giving it a last once-over before he could consider himself packed. "I can't drive you to the airport because you don't want me on the road in the storm and I wouldn't be able to make it back in time, according to your conservative estimates of travel time and distance."

"You drive too fast," he commented without looking up.

"And you don't have time to take me into town to the nearest rental car company and still make your flight," she continued, ignoring his commentary on her driving. "I'll take a cab into town tomorrow and pick up a rental. It's really nothing to worry about."

He closed and locked his suitcase and gestured to her computer, now sitting beside her on the bed. "Any changes?"

She shook her head. The storm was still headed in their direction, and it wasn't letting up. "At least it's not getting any stronger," she said. "It's almost a category three as it is."

He picked up the case and walked toward the door, pausing while she collected her laptop and joined him. With one hand on the door handle, he said, "I guess it wouldn't do any good for me to try and convince you to come with me and come back here after the storm blows through?"

She found his concern comforting. "You've already tried that. No. I can't. I don't want to waste any time and flying back and forth will. The sooner I can get back out there, the better. I have a grave robber to worry about. What if there's something more out there and he gets to it first?" He turned the handle and opened the door. They both stepped into the hall. "Thank you, though."

Booth waited while she fished her room card out of her back pocket before asking, "For what?"

"For being concerned." She smiled at him. "It's nice." They stood in the hallway, neither saying a word, for a long moment. Brennan sighed and pointed out, "You'd better get going. Traffic might be heavy."

"Yeah," he agreed, making no move to leave. He set his suitcase down and took a step toward her. "I hate having to leave you here," he explained. "Be careful."

"I'm always careful," she huffed playfully.

"All evidence to the contrary," he teased in return. Then, she was in his arms. Booth was hugging her, tightly, and she couldn't return the gesture because she was holding her laptop. She tensed at first, and then relaxed, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I'll be okay," she whispered. "I promise."

As quickly as he'd grabbed her, he released her and took a step back. "You'd better," were his parting words as he picked up his suitcase and walked down the hall.

She watched him leave, waiting until the elevator door closed before entering her room. Her blood was still humming from his hug -- which didn't seem like one of his so-called friendly hugs -- their dynamic seemed to be changing, and she found that, while it was a little frightening, it also seemed completely normal.

Knowing that dissecting her relationship -- or lack thereof -- with Booth would drive her insane if she kept at it for too long, she instead focused on the photos that he'd left with her. She took out a notebook and began making notes about what had happened that day -- her conversation with the hikers -- and her lack of conversation with the ragged-looking man in the woods, organizing her thoughts and formulating a plan of attack.

Time passed, and she realized that there was nothing more she could do until morning. Bored, she reached into her pocket and withdrew the button that the man had placed into her hand, turning it over and over. She knew that there was more to the story and wished she had the missing piece. Unsolved mysteries annoyed her.

She was putting the button on her nightstand when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the display and answered.

"Hi, Angela." Brennan settled against her headboard and turned on the television, changed the channel to the local, evening news, and muted the sound.

"Are you riding out the storm?" her friend asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Booth tried to talk me into leaving and it didn't work. Don't even bother. Besides, I don't have a vehicle."

Angela hummed her disapproval then asked, "Are you going to be okay?"

"Why does everyone suddenly think I can't take care of myself?" she asked, laughing incredulously.

"Was that a rhetorical question?" she retorted, and Brennan could visualize her friend's eyebrows arching up her forehead.

"Yes," she allowed. "It was completely rhetorical. I guess I'm a little edgy."

"I would be, too, if I were in the crosshairs of a hurricane."

"It's not that." Brennan waved off her concern about the storm -- really it was only on the edge of her awareness, anyway -- and explained. "Booth hugged me before he left. It wasn't anything . . . anything. It was just . . . different."

Angela was quiet for a moment. "He cares about you, Bren."

"I know he does, and I care about him, too," Brennan said. "This was different, though."

"Good-different or bad-different?" Angela asked.

"Just different. I can't explain it any better than that." Brennan frowned at her admission. She was a scientist and a writer -- she should be able to articulate anything. This, however, stumped her.

Angela sighed. "Don't think about it too much, sweetie. You're going to analyze this hug to death and it will lose its special-ness."

Grinning, Brennan pointed out, "I don't think that's a word."

"Whatever. It fits."

"It does," she agreed. A gust of wind rattled the window just then, and she noticed that the rain had started to fall. "I should probably go," she said. "The weather is starting to turn and I should get my phone and my laptop on to charge, just in case we lose power."

"Good idea," Angela agreed. "I'm going to keep an eye on the news and I want you to call me as soon as you can, okay?"

Brennan was about to agree when there was a knock at the door. "Hang on, Ange. Someone's here."

"Who would it be?" Angela asked.

"Maybe the hotel staff checking on the guests," Brennan reasoned. She opened the door without checking the peephole and was stunned at who she found standing, dripping wet, in the hallway. "Booth?"

He smiled sheepishly at her and shrugged, his wet tee-shirt clinging to his chest.

"Booth is back?"

Brennan had momentarily forgotten that she still had her phone to her ear but snapped into action at Angela's words. "You're soaking wet!"

"Why is Booth back?" Angela asked.

"I don't know. I have to go. I'll call you when the storm passes." She hung up before hearing Angela's response.

"Can I come in?" Booth asked.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Booth vigorously towel-dried his hair, then slipped into a dry pair of jeans and a tee-shirt. His wet clothes had been hung over the shower-rod, but his shoes were still sitting next to the door where he'd toed them off while being hustled to the bathroom by a clucking Brennan. Barefoot, but refreshed, he opened the door to find Brennan resting comfortably on the left side of the bed, eyes glued to the television.

"Thanks for letting me use your room," he said as he placed his shoes near the air-conditioner, hoping that the circulating air might help them dry a little faster. She'd yet to ask him why he'd returned and he wondered how long she would be able to hold out.

"Take a look at this," she said, pointing at the television. She was watching a news report from the coast. "You'd think they'd have better sense than to be out in the storm like that."

Booth chuckled and sat at the foot of the bed, watching, too, as a young reporter braced himself against the steady gale. The rain was blowing horizontally in the glow from the camera's lights and the reporter's skin looked like it was being pulled back from his face. "Anything for the job. Right, Bones?"

He turned to find that she was no longer watching the news and was, instead, watching him.

"You might as well get comfortable," she offered, patting the mattress next to her. He agreed it was going to be a long night, so he climbed up the bed and settled in next to her, each of them sitting up and leaning against the headboard, watching the storm's progress on the television.

"Why are you here?" Brennan asked.

Booth swallowed and said, "I told you. All the other rooms were taken."

"No," she insisted, and he knew she was going to finally ask. "Why aren't you on a plane, half-way to D.C?"

"Oh, that?" He flustered for a moment, wanting to tell her the truth but not knowing how to say it without her getting bent out of shape.

"I'm waiting."

"I know," he replied, mimicking her impatient tone. He turned to her. "Look. There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it -- and you're going to have to believe me when I say that I, in no way, mean this to offend you."

"Ooookay." Brennan leveled him with a look that made him feel like a mental-patient on a day-pass.

He forged ahead. "I didn't feel right leaving you here by yourself in the middle of this storm. I know that you say you can take care of yourself and, believe me when I say that, in most situations, you certainly _can_ take care of yourself -- this one included. But, I couldn't in all good conscience, leave you here to weather this storm while I was safe and dry at home. It just didn't feel right."

She was still staring at him, but her gaze had softened. "Thank you," she said, reaching out to squeeze his hand. He squeezed hers in return and they both turned back to the news.

Booth was well aware that their hands were still linked but, it felt so comfortable -- so natural -- that he didn't want to call attention to it.

"The good thing," Brennan pointed out, "is that the storm seems to be tracking a little to our south. That means that we shouldn't get the worst of it."

Booth grunted. A hurricane was a hurricane, in his book. It didn't matter on which side of the storm one was.

"Can I ask you something?"

Booth nodded, watching as the newscast switched from a live-shot of the coast to the meteorologist who was assuring them that he'd be with them all night.

"What happened to 'there's a line and we can't cross it'?"

He froze -- the statement painfully familiar -- and thought back, trying to remember when he'd said those words to her. It had been after Epps; they'd been at the park after the case had closed, and he'd ranted to her about why Cam had almost died -- that it had been because they were, at the time, in a relationship. He remembered saying that, in their line of work, personal relationships were dangerous. "Why do you ask?" he dodged.

She squeezed his fingers, and he looked at her -- really looked at her. She was leaning back, her head tilted sideways, watching him -- gauging his reaction, no doubt -- her skin scrubbed clean from her shower when they'd returned from the woods that evening, making her look young and innocent. "Because this," she whispered, glancing down at their entwined fingers, "looks like a line to me."

The last time he'd been this nervous, excited, and anxious was when he had kissed Becky Williams behind the jungle-gym at recess in the fifth grade. The enormity of that realization was not lost on him. "I don't know," he said, rubbing his thumb along the top of her hand. "I think the line is somewhere over there." He inclined his head toward the back wall of the room. "We've got a ways to go before we cross it, don't you think?"

Her lips curved into a slight smile and she agreed, "If you think so."

"I do," he assured her.

Somewhere in the background, the meteorologist was rambling on about watches and warnings. Vaguely, Booth heard him say, "If you're watching us from the inland areas -- Gainesville, Ocala, and south to Leesburg -- things are about to get intense."

You ain't kidding, he thought as he inched forward, his lips inexplicably drawn to Brennan's. She was leaning forward, too, and even though his mind was screaming that this was probably not a good idea, he couldn't deny his attraction any more than the tides could defy the moon.

Almost simultaneously, Brennan leaned a little closer in an attempt to close the slight, remaining distance between them -- Booth's cell phone rang -- and the room plunged into darkness.

"Damn."

* * *

"Damn," Brennan hissed as she quickly reached for the flashlight she'd placed on the nightstand. She flicked it on, the only other light in the room from the buttons of Booth's cell phone. Her heart was still pounding, her blood humming in her veins, her head screaming, _'Booth wanted to kiss me! Holy shit, he almost kissed me!'_

Booth had already recovered from the moment and was on his feet, pacing along the side of the bed as he listened to whomever it was on the other end of the line with the unbelievably bad timing.

"Okay," he said, glancing in her direction. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"What?" Brennan was on her feet, following him to his suitcase, which he was rummaging through in the dark.

"Light?" he asked, irritated.

She angled the beam in the direction of his case and asked again, "What's going on?"

Booth sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on a pair of socks. She sat next to him, holding the light for him to be able to see. "That was the local field office. There's been a murder."

"Where?" she asked, mentally kicking herself for being unable to string together more than three words at a time.

"Back at the park," he explained, wrinkling his nose as he put his cold, wet shoes on. "Your mute, mystery man."

Brennan handed him the flashlight and reached for her hiking boots.

"What do you think you're dong?" The flashlight bobbed as he leveled the question at her, a sure sign that he was practically flailing his arms.

"I'm going with you," she replied, leaving no room for an argument.

"Uh, Bones," he said in the sweetly-condescending voice that grated on her nerves. "I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but _there's a hurricane blowing outside right now!"_

She turned around and marched up to him, eye-to-eye and toe-to-toe. "Why the hell do you think I'm going with you? What makes you think that if you wouldn't let _me_ go out there alone, I'd be willing to let _you_ do the same without me?"

"That's different," he replied. "This is my job. I'm F.B.I. You're not."

"But this is directly related to _my_ job, Booth." She took a step back and reached for the flashlight. "Besides, I may have been the last person to see that man alive."

Booth groaned and reached for his keys. "Fine, but you have to do what I tell you to do."

"Of course." Brennan followed him to the door, grabbing her pack along the way.

"And stop rolling your eyes," Booth shot over his shoulder, catching her mid-action. She suppressed the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him.

* * *

The rental car shuddered from the intense wind gusts, and Booth did his best to keep them on the road and in their own lane. Not that it mattered, she reasoned. They were the only idiots out driving around.

Brennan had been trying to get a signal on her cell phone but to no avail. She finally gave up and tossed her phone into her pack, her frustration evident. "Damn it," she muttered. "The storm must have cut the power to some of the cell towers."

"Who were you trying to call?" he asked, hunched forward as he kept his eyes glued to the road.

"Angela." Brennan reached over and adjusted the temperature of the defroster. "I wanted to let her know what was going on in case she tried to call the hotel room and didn't get an answer -- since she obviously won't be able to get through on my cell."

"Hmm," Booth replied. They rode in silence for a little while, both keeping an eye out for debris that may have blown into the road. Twice, they'd had to swerve -- once for a downed tree and another time for what looked like it might have once been a billboard.

When he spoke again, his tone was quiet and thoughtful. "Back at the hotel," he started, and she stiffened, bracing herself for the 'it was a mistake' speech. "I'm . . . I'm sorry . . . that we were interrupted."

She smiled to herself and looked out her window, afraid that if she said anything it would come out a jumbled mess. Instead, she replied, "Me, too." She cleared her throat and turned back to him in time to catch his smile. "So, what happened to my mute-guy?"

Booth shifted in his seat. "Shot."

Brennan swallowed and nodded. "Any signs of a struggle? You already said that it was a murder, so they've ruled out suicide."

"Right. This was definitely not a suicide, and yes, there was a struggle. The ranger found the body a couple of hours ago when he was making sure all the campers had left the forest. He was riding down a fire-break and nearly ran over the body." Booth paused and Brennan nodded for him to continue. "The ranger called the police, then the F.B.I. He happened to be at the dig yesterday and recognized the guy as the one you chased away -- thought it might be related somehow."

Booth slammed on the brakes, and Brennan braced herself against the dashboard as he expertly maneuvered around another tree-fall. "Damn it," he muttered. "This is insane."

They made it the rest of the way to the park without incident and quickly found themselves crammed into the small cab of the ranger's pick-up truck. By the time they made it to the scene, Brennan's heart was racing, and she was beginning to think that Booth had been right about being crazy to go in the storm.

"Wait in the truck," he instructed, and she opened her mouth to argue but bit it back when he gave her the 'no arguments' look. She frowned and complied, keeping a close eye on him while he stood in the whipping rain, talking to the men on the scene. A few moments later, Booth came back with the other ranger -- Brookings, he'd said when they'd climbed into the truck, and Brennan had to remind herself to focus -- and handed her a broken fragment of a name tag.

"'cobs'," she read from the small piece of brown plastic, and then shrugged. "I don't know what this means."

Booth climbed in, leaning against her and soaking her right side as he closed the door. Brookings climbed into the driver's seat, drenching her left side, and off they went, deeper into the woods. "The local office is going to take care of the victim," Booth explained before she could ask. "We're going to go pay a visit to Ranger Cliff Jacobs."

The last piece fell into place and Brennan nodded. Brookings carefully but quickly maneuvered through the woods while Booth worked everything out. "Your mute guy wasn't running from you," he said. "He was running from Ranger Cliff. He left the button so you'd keep asking questions."

"But why would Cliff kill him?" Brennan asked, bracing herself as they bumped along the dirt path.

"Maybe he saw you talking to him in the woods this afternoon," Booth posited. "Who knows? We're going to find out, though."

"It's just around this corner," Brookings interrupted.

Booth turned to Brennan, and she nodded, speaking before he had a chance. "I know, wait in the car." He smiled a 'thank you.' As Brookings killed the engine and Booth reached for the handle, she grabbed his arm. He paused, turning to her, and she added, "Be careful."

"I'm always careful," he replied, full of the cockiness and swagger that she'd loathed, at first, then had grown to admire. Then, he was gone, swallowed up by the wind, rain, and the darkness.

* * *

Booth followed Brookings, gun drawn, cursing himself for not having picked up a vest before running into the woods, in the middle of a hurricane, to find a murderer. He only allowed the thought for a second before his awareness sharpened into hyper-focus. Brookings lifted his hand and Booth paused, waiting for the signal to continue. When Brookings waved him ahead, Booth stepped around him and into the clearing where Jacobs' office was.

A flickering light glowed in the cabin and Jacobs' pick-up truck was parked directly in front of the porch. Booth hurried to the truck and ducked behind it, signaling to Brookings. Brookings nodded and walked up on to the porch.

Booth listened closely, glancing over the edge of the door and through the cab of the truck when he heard Brookings speak. "Hey, Jacobs! You there?" He knocked, and waited a beat before trying the door. Booth watched as the door opened and then was caught by the wind. He cringed when it slammed hard against the wall. "Jacobs?"

Booth ducked back down and wiped the rain from his face, clearing his vision, and peeked back over the edge of the door . . . just in time to see Brookings falling backwards out of the office, hitting the porch with a thud. The tell-tale pop of a gun-shot followed a millisecond later.

Jacobs stepped into view then, looking out and across the clearing before nudging the downed ranger with a toe and then going back inside. Booth ducked and regrouped.

There had to be another door into the small building, he reasoned, so he carefully set off around the truck to see if there was a back way in. When he reached the side of the building, he stopped, freezing in place when he heard the front door open and slam shut. Carefully, pressed against the side of the building, he inched toward the corner and quickly glanced around.

Jacobs was getting into his truck.

Without a moment's hesitation, Booth stepped out from behind his cover and quickly shot both passenger-side tires. "Cliff Jacobs," he yelled over the howl of the wind, "You're under arrest."

Jacobs had spun around at the sound of Booth's shots and, almost immediately, had rolled to the ground, coming up in a crouch with his gun aimed at Booth. He squeezed off two shots as Booth finished speaking.

Booth ducked back around the corner of the house, crouching low, assessing the situation. Jacobs wouldn't be able to get away in his truck with the tires ruined, so his only hope was to try to get away on foot. Logically, he would head out toward the highway. There was always the possibility, though, that he would head deeper into the woods.

_'And find Brookings' truck' _his brain screamed.

Booth couldn't take that chance. He held his breath and rounded the corner once again, firing several shots in Jacobs' direction. Jacobs' returned fire and a well-placed shot hit the wood next to Booth's head, shearing off a large splinter which nicked him above the eye. Warm blood, combined with the rain, dripped into his eyes and his vision blurred for a moment.

He heard another shot, and then felt a searing pain in his left arm. Stunned, Booth went down.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

Brennan had cracked the window just after Booth and Brookings had left. She wanted to be able to hear what was going on, though how she would manage that over the cacophony of the storm, she wasn't sure, and she was trying her best to comply with Booth's request that she remain in the car.

The wind was howling, causing the tall pines to bend dangerously, and she heard loud cracks in the distance -- tree trunks breaking from the strain, she assumed. The first time she heard the pop, she thought it was another tree. Then she heard more pops, in succession, and realized that, although the wind and rain were distorting the sound, she was hearing gunfire.

Temperance Brennan was never one to freeze in a tense situation, but she also knew that she couldn't rush headlong into whatever was happening at the ranger's office. Frantically, she began to search the cab of the truck, hoping to find something that she could use as a weapon, if it were to come to that.

Her search came up empty and she was contemplating sliding over into the driver's seat and moving the truck closer to Booth's location when a man appeared in the beam of the headlights.

Their eyes locked across the distance, the windshield wipers allowing her an intermittent view of first, a shocked Cliff Jacobs, then a gun being leveled in her direction. She ducked just as the bullet whizzed through the windshield and planted with a pop into the seat.

She glanced up again in time to see that Jacobs was walking toward the driver's side. Without a second thought, she scrambled to the passenger door, wrangled it open, and ran into the night.

* * *

Booth's eyes shot open, his first thought on the stinging pain in his left bicep. He groaned and looked around. Jacobs was nowhere to be seen. He knew he couldn't spare any time on his injuries and scrambled to his feet, leaning against the side of the building when dizziness threatened to take him back down.

All thoughts of pain or hesitation left him when he heard a single gunshot, followed by the sound of an engine revving and then retreating. Every nerve in his body was on alert as he ran toward where he and Brookings had left the truck, and Brennan. His worst fears were realized when he reached the dirt path. The truck -- and Brennan along with it -- was gone.

His knees gave out and he sank to the ground. Rain was pouring over him in rivulets. The wind was buffeting his body, threatening to knock him over. The adrenaline rush was wearing off, leaving him feeling nauseated and shaky, and his arm was throbbing where he'd been shot. He closed his eyes and tried to focus, tried to think of his next action, when he heard movement.

His gun was aimed, his finger on the trigger, before his eyes were fully open.

"Booth! It's me!"

At the sound of Brennan's voice, he lowered his weapon and nearly fell over in relief. He felt her hands on his face and looked up to see her examining him with a concerned eye. She was soaked to the skin, her hair hanging in clumps around her face, but he could have sworn that he'd never seen a more beautiful sight.

"You've been shot," she said, grabbing his arm, eliciting a yelp from him. "It's just a graze," she announced after a quick examination.

"Where's Jacobs?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"He took the truck," she confirmed, shifting around to his right side and attempting to help him to his feet. "We need to get inside. The storm seems to be getting worse and I don't think it's a good idea for us to be out here with all these trees falling."

As if to punctuate her point, a large crack sounded to their left, following by an earth shuddering thud. They both looked at the felled tree, a few yards away, in stunned silence. Then Booth was on his feet, leaning on Brennan, as they hurried back to the ranger's cabin.

* * *

They stumbled through the woods, arm-in-arm, and reached the clearing as the storm seemed to take on a life of its own. Brennan caught sight of the truck parked in front of the building and, seeing their salvation, released Booth. Before she could take two steps, he grabbed her hand.

"I shot the tires," he shouted over the howling of the wind.

With no time for disappointment, she forgot about the truck and focused, instead, on getting them into the safety of the cabin. She nearly tripped over the prone body of Ranger Brookings and bit back a yelp, forcing herself to concentrate on the immediate need for shelter.

They cleared the threshold and Booth helped her close the door. The ensuing silence was tangible, and Brennan felt as if muffs had been placed over her ears. She was leaning against the door and could feel it rattle and shift as the wind buffeted it from the other side. It seemed to leech though the cracks in the frame, like fingers trying to get a grip on the structure with its sole intent to rip it to shreds.

"We may need to brace it," she said. "The wind is blowing in this direction, and I'm afraid that the door might not hold." Booth nodded and they made quick work of moving the desk across the floor.

The pressing danger behind them, Brennan found that she couldn't stop shaking as the adrenaline left her system. She knew that if she stood silent and still, she'd likely collapse, so she looked around for something to do.

Booth was sagging against the back wall, eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply. The cut above his eye was still bleeding freely and he cradles his left arm, jaw clenching rhythmically.

Purpose found, Brennan said, "I'm going to see if there's a first-aid kit." The cabin shuddered as she made her way to the bathroom, and she could hear cracks and thumps as debris pelted the roof and walls. The niggling thought that a tree could fall on them, or the roof could blow off, gave her pause, but she shrugged it off. There was nothing she could do, so there was no sense worrying about it.

She found a first aid kit and hurried back to Booth, who had slid down the wall and was sitting on the floor. "Here," she said, sitting in front of him. "Let me patch you up."

Booth smiled faintly and nodded. His silence was unnerving, but she chose to not dwell on it as she dabbed the blood from his forehead with the damp cloth she'd brought from the bathroom. He winced but held still, and she figured he'd been through much worse in his line of work -- some of which she'd seen firsthand.

"Are you feeling dizzy?" she asked when the knot, previously obscured, was revealed. It was impressive, and she started to worry about a possible concussion.

"No," he assured her. "Just exhausted. Adrenaline's wearing off."

She dried the cut, which was, as she'd thought, too small to require stitches, and applied a small amount of antibiotic cream before covering it with a butterfly-bandage.

"Shouldn't I check on Brookings?" she asked, in an attempt to get him talking. She was worried that he might be hurt worse than she'd seen and might be slipping into shock.

"It's not safe." He didn't open his eyes.

"What if he's . . .?"

Booth shook his head. "I saw him take a shot to the chest. He's not. And if we move him and Jacobs comes back . . ." He left the thought unfinished but Brennan knew exactly what he meant. She didn't want Jacobs realizing that they might be inside.

She was looking at his arm again, and the supplies she had on hand, trying to figure out the best way to bandage him. "You need to take off your shirt."

Booth's eyes opened at that, and he smirked, albeit weakly. "Bones, you didn't have to wait for me to get shot to try and get me out of my clothes."

Pleased that his sense of humor hadn't been damaged, she rolled her eyes and pointed to the graze on his bicep. "I can't dress your arm through your shirt," she explained, ignoring the flutter in her stomach.

"Right." Booth groaned and grimaced, but with a little help from Brennan, removed his soggy tee-shirt.

She started cleaning the wound. "We should probably turn off the lamp, too," she remarked, indicating the gas lantern she'd seen on an end table.

"Geez, Bones. First you get me half-naked, and now you want me in the dark?" He hissed as she dabbed at the cut with an alcohol swab. "I'm starting to get ideas."

Brennan frowned and leveled him with what she hoped was a serious stare. "Your arm looks okay, but I think your ego might be a little inflated. We may have to operate."

Booth's eyebrows shot up, and he started to laugh. "Good one."

She smiled and wrapped gauze around his arm, securing it with some adhesive. Pleased with her work, she leaned back to visually examine him and make sure that there was nothing else she'd need to bandage. She let her eyes wander over his chest and down his stomach to his waist, wondering briefly what he would say if she asked him to take off his jeans so she could make sure his legs were okay.

"I'll put this stuff away," she said, quickly, shaking off the images that had come, unbidden, to her mind, and she jumped to her feet.

* * *

Booth watched in fascination as Brennan beat a hasty retreat from the room. Now that they were in a somewhat secure shelter, and his wounds were dressed, he could admit to himself how monumentally relieved he was that she was okay.

When he'd heard the gunshot and had arrived to find the truck missing, the first image that had come to mind was finding her lifeless body somewhere in the woods, a bullet-hole between the eyes. It was a nightmare scenario that had played itself out in his imagination countless times -- usually after she'd run headlong into danger without first considering her own safety. While it was one of the many qualities that he admired in her, it also scared him to death.

"What are you thinking about?"

He looked up to find her standing before him, shirt soaked and sticking to her body, her hair framing her face in dripping clumps. She held a blanket in one hand and a large flashlight in the other.

"Booth?"

He smiled and shook his head. "It's nothing," he said. "Why don't you put out the lantern and sit with me?"

She handed him the blanket and flashlight and quickly extinguished the lantern, plunging the room into darkness. It was only for a moment, though, as Booth flicked the flashlight on and shined it on the floor at her feet.

"Thanks." She walked toward him and took the blanket, opening it and shaking it out. "There was only one blanket. If I suggest that we share, are you going to make another innuendo-laden comment?"

He smirked and held up his right hand. "I won't." At her disbelieving look, he added, "Scout's honor." Apparently satisfied, she motioned for him to lean forward and she dropped the blanket behind him, then slid down the wall and settled in beside him, wrapping them both in the thermal throw.

They sat in silence, listening to the storm rage around them. Booth was wondering how much longer the storm would last, and when someone might come looking for them. The team that had collected the body in the woods knew that he, Brennan, and Brookings were headed to talk to Jacobs. Rationally, when they didn't check in, someone should begin to think something had gone wrong.

Of course, there was a hurricane mucking up the normal flow of business.

Brennan shivered. Booth shifted slightly and lifted his right arm, draping it across her shoulders and pulling her closer to him. She tensed slightly at first, then relaxed.

"Body heat," she murmured. He nodded. "I'm glad you're okay," she added after a beat.

"I'm glad you're okay, too," he admitted. She was still shivering, so he started to rub her arm, pulling her even closer to his chest. "When I heard that gunshot . . ."

"I know," she interrupted, her words slightly muffled against his bare skin. "I heard the gunshots and then, when Jacobs came up on the truck, I thought the worst."

Her breath on his chest was stirring something in him and he found it hard to concentrate on anything other than the rhythm of her breathing. "When I followed him, and you were gone, I thought for sure than he'd taken you . . . or worse."

"He shot through the windshield. I ducked in time, and then took evasive action."

"You did good," he said and could feel her smile against his skin.

Again, they lapsed into silence. Booth was content to hold her close, trying to ignore the feelings warring within him. He was her friend. She was his partner. But he was getting to the point where he couldn't deny that they might have the chance for so much more. She'd teased him, earlier, in the hotel. God, it seemed like days, and yet it had only been hours before. She'd called him on his stance on mixing a professional relationship with a personal one . . . and he'd nearly kissed her.

He wanted to kiss her now.

She was close to him . . . vital, strong, and independent but, for the moment, vulnerable. As he ran his fingers lightly along her arm, he looked down at her face. Her eyes were closed. The worry lines, present since she'd appeared before him in the woods, had relaxed. Her breathing was slow and steady.

She'd fallen asleep in his arms.

Exhaustion was creeping up on him, as well. He turned off the flashlight and listened. The storm seemed to be abating and, with a quick prayer to the saints, he hoped that was the case. He fought off the desire to close his eyes, wanting to stay awake in case something . . . anything . . . happened but he soon, too, was asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Brennan opened one eye and saw skin. Carefully, she shifted her position as the events of the evening rushed back to her. The storm had passed, and she could hear birds chirping outside. The sun was up, and she risked movement to check her watch. It was seven-thirty in the morning. She did the math in her head, recalling the weather reports they'd been watching before they'd been called away, and recalled that the storm had been predicted to increase its forward momentum when it had hit land. It looked as if the meteorologists had predicted correctly.

Booth had his right arm around her, holding her fast against him. She didn't want to wake him, so she settled back against him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. With the dawn would come either their rescue or a retreat to the main park entrance, and she wanted to indulge in her position just a little longer.

If only Angela could see her now, she thought with a smile.

Booth's breathing changed slightly, and she felt him shift under her. She pulled away, gratified when he tightened his hold on her before releasing her.

"Good morning." He smiled at her, sleep still heavy in his eyes. "Sounds like the storm's over."

She nodded and made a move to stand, her cramped muscles protesting. "I hear birds," she commented as she straightened and stretched. "We should probably try to head out of here as soon as possible."

Booth nodded grimly and stretched, standing without accepting her outstretched hand. "If I can't get off the floor," he remarked, "I have no business marching through the woods."

They got busy searching the office for anything that might aid them. Brennan pulled some water bottles from the fridge, and Booth found a spare shirt of Jacob's that almost fit. They were pulling the desk away from the door when Booth held up a hand, stilling Brennan.

"What?" she asked. He held a finger to his lips and gave her a look that plainly said, _'Quiet!'_ Then she heard it, too -- a truck engine, growing louder.

Brennan's heart began to race. "What if it's Jacobs?" she whispered.

Booth nodded and gestured for her to get back. He ducked under a window and peeked out as the truck pulled up in front of the cabin and the engine died. Brennan watched, waiting for a signal from Booth. She relaxed immediately when he stood to his full height and shouted, "We're in here!"

* * *

Back at the hotel, Booth had showered and changed into clean, dry clothes. When he stepped out of the bathroom, he heard Brennan wrapping up a conversation with, he assumed, Angela.

"Jacobs took off in the truck, but Booth had shot him in the leg. He must have nicked an artery and been bleeding pretty badly, because he only got a few miles down the highway when he apparently passed out and went off the road. The truck flipped a couple of times, and he was thrown from the cab. The State Highway Patrol found his body this morning when they were making a pass to see if the roads were clear of debris."

She looked up from the television, which was playing images of the storm damage, and smiled as Booth made his presence known. She patted the bed next to her, and he walked over and joined her.

Brennan nodded and continued, "Yes, the highway patrol found the engraving plates in the car. We searched his truck, the one Booth shot up, and found the old rifle."

Booth nudged her at the 'shot up' comment. She nudged him back. "We're coming home tonight -- soon, in fact. Booth just got out of the shower, so I'm going to jump in, then we're heading to the airport . . . okay . . . I'll see you tomorrow."

Brennan dropped the phone on the bed and flopped back onto the pillows. "I'm exhausted," she admitted. "I don't think I've ever been so glad to be going home -- and I've been in some pretty turbulent locations!"

"You had asked me about the line," Booth said, eliciting her rapt attention. She nodded, and he continued. "I've been thinking about it, and I may have been a little . . . hasty . . . when I said that people in our line of work can't _ever_ have a relationship."

Brennan propped herself up on her elbows and quirked a smile at him. "What exactly are you saying, Agent Booth?"

He looked down at his hands, unable and unwilling to meet her gaze. He was nervous enough as it was. "What I'm saying, Temperance, is that it really doesn't matter whether you and I are in a relationship. Bad things are going to happen, like they did last night. What happened to you had nothing to do with me -- other than that I dragged you down to this God-forsaken place to begin with. Jacobs would have shot at you whether we were together or not. So," he took a deep breath and forged ahead, "I'm asking if you'd like to give it a try. Us. You and me . . . and see what happens."

He looked up to find that she was studying him -- smiling, but still studying with a critical eye. "What happens if it doesn't work out? What happens if we 'give this a try,' and we find out that we're not any good at the relationship thing? Will you be able to work with me without that getting in the way?"

He gave her a lopsided grin. "Will you?"

"Touché." She sat up and hugged her knees. "Are we going to be able to work together _while_ in a relationship? Won't that make things difficult?"

"It hasn't yet," he reasoned. "We've been working together for a few years now and we're in a relationship -- friends, sure -- but that's still a relationship. All we'd be doing is taking things to the next level."

"Okay." She unfolded her legs and rolled off the bed, grabbing her clean, folded clothes from off the top of her suitcase as she passed.

Booth watched her as she walked around the bed and past him without so much as a sideways glace. "Wait! Okay? Just okay?" He sat up straighter and ran an agitated hand through his still damp hair.

Brennan turned and shrugged. "Yeah," she smiled through pursed lips. "Okay."

She turned back toward the bathroom, but this time Booth was quick. "Hold on!" He reached for her arm, grasping her wrist, and turned her to face him. She was still smiling, enigmatically. "I feel like we should commemorate the occasion," he explained.

She tilted her chin up at him and tipped her head to the side in question. "Oh?"

He reached up and placed his hand on her cheek, gratified when she leaned into his touch. He ran his thumb along her jaw, and she smiled slightly, taunting him. "I'm going to kiss you, Bones."

He leaned in and gently brushed her lips with a quick, chaste kiss. When he pulled back, she was grinning. "Nice," she commented.

"Thanks," he replied, running his hand down her neck and onto her shoulder. "Play your cards right . . ."

"And the ego returns." She gently pushed him away. "I have to get in the shower. Finish packing." She stepped back and closed the door.

Booth turned around and nearly tripped over his shoes, which he'd left just inside the door. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Brennan was behind the closed door and hadn't seen his graceful retreat. Hearing the shower turn on, he sighed in relief and returned to his suitcase to prepare for the trip home.

* * *

The next morning, Brennan sat at her desk, eyeing the stack of folders that hadn't moved since she'd left the week before. She took the top folder from the stack and opened it, flipping through the pages, but her heart wasn't in it. A tap at her door was a welcome interruption, even more so when she looked up and saw that it was Booth.

"Back at it, I see?" He pointed to the files and whistled. "Did that pile grow while we were gone?"

"It's quite possible," she conceded.

"Sit with me?" he asked.

She stood and joined him on the couch, sitting next to him rather than across from him in one of the arm chairs. "What are you working on today?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, yet, but it's still early. I'm sure before the day is out I'll get a call."

Brennan patted him on the knee, and he slung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him.

"That's cozy."

Brennan started to pull away, but Booth held her tight. She sighed and looked at Angela, standing in the doorway, and ogling them with questioning eyes. Brennan was sure that, once Booth was gone, she was going to be spending the rest of the morning explaining this new turn of events.

Angela plopped down in the chair across from them and crossed her legs. "I wanted to fill you in on some new details regarding your Civil War soldier."

"Oh?" Brennan's interest had been piqued, and she leaned forward, allowing Booth's hand to slide to her back.

"It was Hodgins' hunch," Angela explained. "He'll be here in a minute. He should probably tell you the story."

On cue, Zack entered the room, followed closely by Hodgins. If either found it odd that Brennan was sitting close to Booth and his hand was on her back, neither let it show. Zack sat in the other arm chair, and Hodgins leaned on the arm of Angela's chair.

"Well, what did you find?" Booth asked.

Hodgins broke into a self-satisfied smile. "I did a little digging on your ranger, Cliff Jacobs. Come to find out, his family goes way back. They settled in Florida just before the Civil War. I traced his line and found a Union soldier named Alexander Martin. He was listed as missing and presumed dead at the Battle of Monocacy Junction, just outside of Frederick Maryland, on July ninth of 1864 -- two months before the Richmond mint was robbed. Alexander's cousin was already established in Florida as a not-so-great guy."

Zack cut in, "We think that Alexander probably stole a Confederate uniform, took the cash and the plates and started down to Florida to meet up with his cousin and sell the plates to some of the people his cousin knew. If the bones in the woods are his, he obviously didn't make it."

Angela picked up the thread and continued, "Local legend tells of a Confederate treasure lost in the woods. Cliff's family had been spinning the tale for generations. He knew that his great-great-great-grand-uncle had died somewhere between Ocala and Richmond so, when he found the bones and the box and the plates, he knew exactly what he'd stumbled across."

Brennan leaned back, and Booth slowly moved his hand up her back to rest, again, on her shoulder. "That's why he took the rifle. I knew it couldn't worth anything unless it was for sentimental reasons."

Booth nodded. "It all makes sense. Can you pull DNA from the bones to compare it to Jacobs?"

Brennan nodded. "Viable samples of mitochondrial DNA have been pulled from bones older than these. It's possible that we might be able to prove some familial relation between the remains and Jacobs. At least we'd be able to positively put a name with the remains."

Zack jumped to his feet. "I'll get on it."

"Glad to see you both back and in one piece," Hodgins offered before following Zack.

Angela stood up and smoothed her slacks, picking off an imagined piece of lint before turning her attention to the couple on the couch. She pointed a red-tipped fingernail at Brennan and smiled. "Tonight, sweetie, you and me. Confessions and drinks -- not necessarily in that order." She winked at Booth and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Booth sighed and settled back into the couch. Brennan settled against him. "Well," he said, "I guess this means we're off for tonight."

"We were on?" She poured through the foggy details of the previous twelve hours but couldn't remember making plans.

"Angela stole my thunder." Booth hugged her, and then sat up. "How about tomorrow night? Dinner and a movie?"

"A date?" Brennan feigned shock.

"An honest-to-goodness date," he agreed. "I'll even pay."

She stood when he did and followed him to the door, pausing when he opened it. "Dinner and a movie sound nice," she agreed. "Assuming, of course, that nothing comes up between now and then."

Booth was about to agree when his cell phone rang. He groaned, mouthed _'jinx'_ at her, and reached into his pocket while Brennan tried to contain her smile. "Booth." He listened for a moment then said, "We're on our way."

He hung up and took her by the hand. "Grab your hip-waders, Bones. We're on the job."

"Hip-waders?!" Brennan tried to pull back but found that she was, once again, being swept along by the force of nature that was Seeley Booth.

And she didn't mind it one bit.

**end**


End file.
